Kevin (00:01.867) Beth, Julie, have your kids decided, one, if they're going to be trick or treating and two, what they're gonna be yet? Because it's coming real fast. Beth Russell (00:12.526) Please, you know my family is already completely planned and decked out. You should see, wait until you see my husband's costume. It is utterly ridiculous. Kevin (00:24.961) Okay, so Beth's is a secret still? Beth Russell (00:27.246) No, it's not a secret, like just prepare yourselves. We are, doing a wicked theme, which I is typically is a little bit more trendy than we typically go. Um, but just wait until you see my husband. You're going to love it. Kevin (00:34.219) Okay. Kevin (00:41.345) trying to think who you would, guess the Wizard of Oz themselves or no, he's dead, right? I've seen the play, but I can't remember who he could be. Julie, what about you? Beth Russell (00:53.666) You. Julie Jarnagin (00:55.317) Yes, my kids have got their costumes. My 11 year olds being a plague doctor, which is apparently a thing right now. I don't know. I was like, where did that come from? But apparently that's out in the world right now. Which he's creeped me out many times just walking around the house in his costume. And then the 17 year old did get a costume because their football game is on Halloween. So apparently the students are going dressed up. So he has, I think it was really just an excuse to get a Darth Vader costume at 17. You just want an excuse if you're into that kind of thing. If you're a nerd in the most loving way possible. Yeah, I think it was his excuse. Yeah, there we go. Beth Russell (01:27.971) I respect that. Kevin (01:29.377) Oh, do you want my help? Do you want my helmet? Beth Russell (01:35.768) Kevin's like, I got you. Kevin (01:38.465) I can send you this. It's three parts. It comes apart. Julie Jarnagin (01:45.171) Yes, yes, we had to snap it together so he could put it on his head. So yes, and I wear the same cat ears every year and I have for like almost 20 years probably. That's how exciting I am. Kevin (01:48.193) Green sounds. Beth Russell (01:49.87) That's amazing. Kevin (02:00.352) That's the same cat ears. All right. My girls are too old. They're not interested anymore. But my boys keep changing every two days. So we're in that phase where they have great plans and then like, okay, what are we gonna do about it? I don't know yet. I think they're just becoming more self-aware. they need to be, it's like my son won't buy his basketball shoes for basketball season, my youngest, because he needs to see what everyone else is buying. Like, what does that have to do with anything? He tried to buy, well, anyway. All right, let's get started. Welcome to episode 409, I'm Kevin Oakley, and with me today is Beth Russell and Julie Jarnigan, also known as Lady with Cat Ears, on Trick or Treat Night. Beth Russell (02:30.498) Mm. Julie Jarnagin (02:51.135) Right, right, I need to find them this year. They're still in a box somewhere. Beth Russell (02:55.949) Whoops. Kevin (02:58.333) let's go right into story time. Julie, you wanna lead us off? Julie Jarnagin (03:03.557) Yeah, so it's funny, public school, my kids go to public schools and they drive me crazy sometimes because they do things the hardest way possible. Or I'm like, this could be easier, but if you say anything, then you have volunteered to help. But I have to say recently, I was like, this is brilliant. Now when they have book fair, like the scholastic book fair, at the same time, they have grandparents night. It's like grandparents bingo night. and the book fair is open. And I'm like, that is brilliant because the grandparents then spend all the money at the book fair instead of like the parents being like, no, you're not even buying books. You're buying posters and toys. Now they sell everything, which I think it's weird. But anyway, all that to say, it is very smart on their part because all the grandparents go in, spend a ton of money at book fair, make money for the PTA, which is smart. But I also want to say this is the thing They could have said, let's make more signs, let's send more emails to the parents, let's send more flyers. None of that probably would have made a huge difference. But once they figured out how to get the right people through the door and in there, it all became easier. So it's just a lesson in talking to the right audience at the right time, getting the right people through the doors, and then things get easier. If we had to put out a billboard to the whole community or gone to a community event and talked about the book fair. Nobody's going to show up. Nobody cares. Parents are already feeling stretched thin, but they got the grandparents in the door said, here's the book fair. Here's your cute grandkids done. Sold a ton of books. So yeah. Beth Russell (04:46.306) And they threw some bingo in the mix. Can I just say, sign me up for that PTO event? Like I'm there for that one. Julie Jarnagin (04:53.405) And apparently the prizes for Bingo were just free boxes of Kane's Chicken Fingers because they have a sponsor of, it was Candy and Kane's Chicken Fingers were the prizes. Beth Russell (05:05.246) me up. I'm there. Kevin (05:07.038) my goodness. Kevin (05:30.26) Well, that makes me wanna be completely distracted by beginning the cane sauce versus Chick-fil-A sauce controversy. I used to hate cane sauce with a passion and now I think it might be split decision. Julie Jarnagin (05:42.197) I like canned sauce. Beth Russell (05:43.884) We don't have a raising Kings in our proximity that I'm aware of, nor is my husband aware of, which is probably a good thing because he would go there every single day. So I don't have a leg in this fight. Julie Jarnagin (05:56.629) I love Chick-fil-A better. I'm not a Cane's fan, but Cane's sauce is tasty. Kevin (05:57.333) this. Kevin (06:01.47) Yeah, I agree with you. The chicken's better. What's interesting is, I think if I had to guess of any large chain at that size, this is a marketing related. We haven't gone completely off the rails, everyone. It has the most simplistic menu. Beth Russell (06:10.99) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (06:18.695) Yeah, which I don't love, but it's- Kevin (06:20.594) No, that drives me crazy too, Julie. I'm like, okay, I just want something. Like, can you do one seasonal thing like every quarter or just... Julie Jarnagin (06:25.362) Anything else. Julie Jarnagin (06:30.057) Yeah, no, it's chicken, fries, toast, coleslaw, nothing else. There's nothing else on the menu. Well, well, yeah. Kevin (06:35.951) No, sweet tea. Don't they have their own sweet tea? I think, I don't know, I'm not a sweet tea person, but. Okay Beth, what do you got? Beth Russell (06:46.004) Nothing as entertaining as that. So I, I apologize to our listeners. I had a real world situation unfold this week of what we talked about at summit with building a contextual relationship in your data analysis and storytelling. And it was really big words. Julie Jarnagin (06:47.824) Hahaha! Kevin (07:01.248) Oh, that's a lot of stuff. Say that one more time. Beth Russell (07:07.138) Okay, at Summit, we had a whole session on data storytelling and a large piece of the framework that we built out for data storytelling is building a contextual relationship. So it's a marriage between adding context to your data, but also telling the story around the relationship and the impact that it has both internally and externally, right? Kevin (07:09.994) Yep. Yep. Kevin (07:30.368) You sounded like an AI data scientist for a second. You were just so passionate. I loved it. I was just making sure. You are, you are. I love it. Beth Russell (07:34.828) I'm just that smart. but it was really fun because it unfolded organically this week. were doing some analysis with a newer builder of ours and kind of evaluating how things are performing over the past month and a half. And the marketer sent an email that was like, I think we need to look at this from a different perspective. And he posed some questions that were alongside. the guidance of questions that we provided at summit. And he was there fervently taking his notes at summit and just seeing him do that via email and making his team kind of look at the data from a different point of view and what might kind of be hidden behind the scenes. It was really, really cool. And then it sparked an even greater and more complex conversation that resulted in real world tactical change that we could apply. from our four hour strategy. And I just loved playing witness to that. Kevin (08:39.712) Yeah, very cool. mean, it part of it also starts. I mean, it is the process of of contextualization and storytelling. It's also the person at the top being willing to say, hold on, let's let's look at this like. That signal of someone being willing or open to changing their mind is increasingly rare. It seems like because everyone's more certain with the data they have. And that becomes a major challenge sometimes when we start working with newer builders and sometimes older builders who have a difficult time realizing that somewhere along the line, the data stops being potentially as reliable as they think it is. so that openness is a big component too, I think. Beth Russell (09:29.134) Absolutely. think the openness, especially in this day and age, is what allows you to pivot and create a strategy that is maybe perhaps a little outside the box, but marries with some foundational aspects that really gives you strong success. And what's remarkable in this particular scenario is that this is a really, really intelligent company. They have a lot of data, and they look at data in a very deep way. But... where you can get trapped in that scenario is you go too deep and things get too complex, especially if you're still looking at the data at face value and not peeling back those layers behind the door. And that's exactly what he did, unprompted. He really truly did it unprompted. I just kudos to you. Kudos to you. Kevin (10:06.772) Mm-hmm. Kevin (10:18.686) I'm also smiling because as soon as you say the builder is really smart and has lots of data, I can think of at least 20 of the people we work with who are like, now she's talking about me. At least 20, maybe more, I love it. That's so cool. Okay. Julie Jarnagin (10:27.701) you Beth Russell (10:28.749) At least 20, yeah. We'll get the emails. Kevin (10:39.164) The story time that I want to share came actually from yesterday where I hopped on with a builder who is on the smaller scale currently. They've sold out of a lot of their projects, but they still have a really large master plan and a couple smaller communities active. And the marketer, first of all, this cracked me up. I couldn't remember. said, are you married or engaged? Or like what's going on? She's like, well, Maybe we have to edit this out for safety reasons. No, I'm just kidding. It's not that serious. She goes, well, we did the courthouse thing. We're married, but we have the ceremony coming up in the spring. And I was like, well, now I'm distracted because is what we call this person. Like you are married. Is it your secret husband, your closet husband? It seems like an A &E special series of like the lives of secretly. Like it's not a secret. She's like, people know anyway. It's like, wow, this is this is already compelling. But the reason that was all super relevant is because they're building a house with their builder and going from renting to owning. And I asked her, said, so are you like going all in on all the content related to your own experience? And this is how jaded I am. This is why I wanted to share this story. And she goes, heck yeah. Just like that. And I was like. She's being sarcastic. She's not doing it. And I was like, that's too bad. She goes, no, I like I really am. And then her whole attitude and energy level change. I was like, you're serious. She's like, no, we just had our second design studio appointment and we got all kinds of footage and this is going to be awesome. And I'm jaded because and we live this life too. Like I don't like being on camera. I don't I tolerate. Speaking into larger groups, I just am more naturally a one-on-one small group, go a little bit deeper kind of individual. And yet I know that if I want ideas that I think are important to spread that you have to do that stuff. But when you're in home building and you need the right kind of attention from the right kind of people and distribution is, it's not the easy part, but it's easier. Like we can solve that problem. Kevin (13:03.7) the people who know how the accounts work and the algorithms work, can all help distribution. It continually comes back to the hard part is content. Like I have another kind of thing queued up to go out tomorrow. like everyone is so freaked out about what to do with AI and yet they're not, they're still not doing enough with video. Like just, and the video that you make will help train the AI of the next quarter that's gonna blow everyone's mind and do amazing things. And so I just, I immediately was like, okay, well, if you're doing this, I just want to give you a little extra inspiration. Next year in Austin, Texas, you're going to talk about your experience doing that. What was good about it, what was hard about it, what you learned, and we're going to showcase like the key pieces of content that came out of that and how they were used and also how that process of being a customer of your builder changed your empathy level and understanding of the data and made you start questioning. It's gonna be awesome from a content perspective. It's also gonna be an awesome awareness project for her of, I've been reading these reports that say our customers are satisfied with this, this, and this. That didn't really hit me that way. I wonder if maybe the survey question isn't asked in quite the right way or we're engineering it to get the data that is best for internal reporting but not best for insight. So I just am super excited about that. Beth Russell (14:15.458) Mm-hmm. Kevin (14:33.478) And I said, hey, whatever you call this person that you're married to, if they ever get grumpy or like, why are you still doing this? You just tell them to hush it because this is gonna be really big for your career if you really keep leaning into this and go all in on the content side. Beth Russell (14:54.478) You're gonna have to send us what to follow. Julie Jarnagin (14:54.621) Yeah, I think it's good too that they, if you go through it with you and your spouse and can we video you, can we interview you, it lets you know what it feels like for your home builders too. So how can we do it to make it easy for them and want them to be a part of it? So you get to see the other side of it too, because sometimes it is hard to talk people into, let us follow you, let us do it. know, some people love it, some people hate it, but it's good practice for remembering what that feels like too. Kevin (15:09.268) Mm-hmm. Kevin (15:18.975) Yeah. Kevin (15:22.482) On the tactical level too, it's been interesting to watch several builders lean into something that we worked with builders in the COVID era doing, but going back to it is just hopping on video calls with customers that are willing to do it as both a pre-screening and a let's get some very raw, quick content feedback. Especially for some of the social platforms, that content can really quickly be packaged up and used. Used well. All right, special announcement time. I don't think I have a button for special announcements, but I'll use that one. There's another Marketproof Marketing Academy coming up quickly in 2026 in January. We have more people on the VIP list for that than we've had, I think, for any academy ever. So make sure you get your name on that list because, you know, we don't know what's gonna happen, but... The feeling right now is that it'll go pretty quickly once tickets are released. And that's such a big secret that no one will tell me when it's exactly happening. So I can't even, if I wanted to right now, I couldn't tell you. It might be tomorrow, it might be yesterday. Make sure you're on that list so you get notified as soon as tickets are available. Because we do keep class sizes small for maximum engagement. It's an eight week program, a couple kickoff days of live training, and then eight weeks of ongoing. opportunities to engage and connect. All right, on to the news. And I think this is interesting in terms of like, experience promised versus experience delivered. And that is that there's been an addition to Chatch APT of multiple apps is what they're using, what they're calling it. And booking.com, Expedia is in there and Zillow. Zillow now has an integrated app that you do have to, if you wanna make sure it's being used, install, in air quotes, they're, so real quick reset on this topic, is that ChatGBT is really shifting towards trying to become an operating system, is the language that is being used both by them and Zillow and some interviews that they've done publicly, where, Kevin (17:45.729) Okay, we're gonna be the place you go to interact with your trusted AI LLM, but we don't wanna be responsible for everything that you might ask it. And just like Microsoft and Apple, lot of people install apps to have kind of more control over the experience and the data and everything that goes into that. Which is it's odd to me in one sense that this is supposed to be generalized intelligence that's superhuman. And so it is kind of this reversion back to we need to find ways to make money and to scale faster where we don't have to do it. So part of this is genius. Zillow has a long history of this. They were one of the first apps on the iPad, part of Steve Jobs keynote when the iPad was released as an example. they always rush in quickly to be part of any potential new, they were added to the Apple Vision Pro, as well as a separate app for that experience. And now here they are with ChatGPT. final setup is just a quick explanation for those of you listening of how this functions. Essentially, you can install, select third-party apps that you want to have access to your operating system of ChatGPT. And when you go to do a prompt, you can choose implicitly to use the app. And then it shows Zillow's logo on the bottom. You can ask a question. And if ChatGBT determines that the best place to get the data is Zillow, then it will call the Zillow app, which then opens up an actual map result, and can pull in, essentially, I would say it's like 60 % of the traditional Zillow interface. in terms of discovery, the map, the red dots, the price bubbles, pictures of the homes, who the listing is coming from. From my testing so far, I don't see any advertising of any kind. So there are no promoted, which that's part of how new platforms develop is promising like, whoop, you don't have to mess with or be distracted by advertising. And then it's like, well, now we have the audience and the attention, so now there's ads. Kevin (20:13.77) But this is really early on. it's an experience within an experience. And that experience isn't the full Zillow experience, but it's pretty close. And the nice thing is that you can be very contextual with your questions, which you can do now in the Zillow app itself. Like you could say, I'm looking for three, but it's exposure to an additional 800 million weekly active users on ChatGPT. And that's why I think the operating system pieces relevant because it's an end around of saying, we want everyone to believe that users are gonna spend basically their whole day when they pull out in the future the chat GPT phone, there will be no home screen. It will just be a little prompt waiting for you of what do you wanna do. And so you might not need Apple or Android in the same way in the future. Anyway, that's a lot of setup. What do you all think? Beth Russell (21:11.502) whole thing is a lot. Like you just described the plot to Inception. Like it's a dream within a dream. It's an app within an app. I just, mean, maybe I'm a grandma. I think we learned that earlier with my desire to go to a PTO festival that is inclusive of books and bingo. But like I'll just go to the Zillow app. I'm good. And then when I was playing around in chat GBT and I was asking like more contextual, Kevin (21:13.28) In what way? Kevin (21:18.976) Mmm. Julie Jarnagin (21:31.945) Yeah. Beth Russell (21:40.578) where I see value from someone like me who relocates a lot is like, okay, well help me find homes that are within this price point that are an hour away from this destination in a good school district. Like help me narrow down my search a little bit. And that contextual question or that context in a question is helpful when they can provide a guide, but I guess I can ask that on Zillow. Kevin (22:11.966) Yeah, and that's part of the clunkiness of it early on. Again, this is just the initial kind of beta version, if you will. But depending on the question you ask, even if you, the map that it creates, you can create full screen and then you get an even more Zillow-like experience. You can request tours and contact agents directly in that experience. But if I ask a question, it says ask Zillow in the prompt box when you're in that full screen experience. And yet when I ask a question like, Beth Russell (22:39.022) Mm-hmm. Kevin (22:41.536) which of these results would be the best option for me and I try to get super contextual and give it lots of detail, then because the kind of brain, and I hate using this language, I'll get better in the future, I promise, because you know, it's simulated intelligence, not actual intelligence, but the brain of Chatchie BT doesn't get full access to the data. Beth Russell (22:48.27) Mm-hmm. Kevin (23:04.884) because it is an app within ChatGPT and there's rules about data sharing in the MLS, Zillow can't just like embed all of the data that it has access to, which means that when I ask a question, even though I'm in that experience, it gives me this kind of vanilla text only answer. It can't necessarily change the map in context. And then it starts telling me wrong things like the house that I grew up in, which is not a split level home. It called a split level. And again, so like the hallucinations are intact whenever ChachiPT is involved. And so it's this seeming promise of the marriage of all the best of Zillow and all the contextual opportunities and insight that ChachiPT can give you. And yet it's not actually integrated. And that's where it starts to fall apart. And it can at times because of that, for me anyway, as someone who's used Zillow for as long as I can remember. It's actually slower. Now, the average user might not be the case, but I know how to just go into the filters and filter out what I want. I don't need to write a paragraph to then have it tell me these are the 27 properties that meet the criteria you're looking at. Beth Russell (24:19.436) Yeah, same. That's probably part of my frustration is like, I don't need that. I would love for, especially going into a new area that I'm not familiar with, for it to give me, you know, guidance in terms of where we could live in proximity that we could start our journey in, but it would still need so many following steps that I don't want to do it in that app experience because it's going to create too much doubt for me if I'm getting the right things. I need... I'm still the type of person that needs to have that control outside of it. Julie Jarnagin (24:53.597) Yeah, that's what the draw for chat GPT to me is that it is so broad and like feels like it knows everything. So once it starts pairing that down, then it gets less like as a user desirable to me. And then it's like, well, yeah, that is the point lower down where I do want more control. So then it becomes not as helpful for me. That's when I do want to control my old filters. I remember when we were Moving. I remember like I knew every single house that was coming on the market that was within my specifications I had it so wide out and people would like send me a picture from a real estate book This one I'm like I I know about every single house it could possibly and so like when you get to that really detailed point It gets outside of that more generalized. So that's where I don't think it they figured out that mesh Beth Russell (25:44.728) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (25:51.071) quite yet, but this I think is the road to getting better at that. But the more specific I need to get, the more I don't want to be in that broader world. Kevin (26:02.88) I think the win for OpenAI is it potentially sets off a race of everyone else, which we're seeing and hearing about is, OK, well, I'm sure homes.com wants an app and realtor.com wants an app and Coldwell Banker wants an app and Compass wants an app. And so it's potentially this race of getting more of these app experiences so that you can tell your audience and your employees and everyone else, hey, we're here too. this is the, so it creates this rush to be part of it, which is gonna be beneficial to them. Again, they don't have to worry about the accuracy of the data and that experience. It's this like, well, don't blame us if you get. something wrong or don't like it, it's Zillow. Zillow has to maintain it. Zillow has to keep it operating, improve the customer experience. And that's why I think it's very clear to tell you when you go full screen, like you're gonna ask Zillow now, even though again. And then the other thing is, again, I asked a question about like of the 40 homes you've found for me, I think it's pretty reasonable. Here's the most I can spend. Here's a little bit more about my situation. Can you suggest the top 10 homes that are new construction that would be a fit for me? And again, it just gave me the text answers. And then I said, hey, I'd love to know who built each one of those. And it just said, sorry, I can't tell you that. And then I said, what I can try to do is I can go to each of these listings and try to see if in the description it's there. Or I was looking at raw land, because that's my thing. I don't look at homes, I look at raw land. I just love looking at land. But in Zillow, is no, you're always shown commercial properties when you're looking for land of more than five acres. And I said, can you remove all the commercial properties? Nope, there is no field for removal of commercial properties. I'm like, well, when you pull up any of those listings, the first thing it says is perfect for developing a mall, or like, you know. Kevin (28:10.441) it's very clear that it's potential residential use. I think it's good to test. Also, fair housing would be my other thought, Beth, is that a lot of the questions that people want to know, people like Zillow and the MLS are not allowed to answer. that's where like, so good on Zillow for boxing out, good on Zillow for creating the first iteration of what this might look like. I don't know how they get around this, but as long as the answer is that people really wanna know, Beth Russell (28:25.358) Mm-hmm. Kevin (28:46.866) can't in air quotes be answered, even though the data exists, it continues to create an opportunity for someone else to displace them. Like long-term, I feel like long-term OpenAI is gonna want to make a data agreement directly with the MLSs once real estate agents aren't completely freaked out about not having a job or being, because then, Beth, you could ask any question you want to about any property in there and get the kind of... Beth Russell (29:14.83) And the neighborhood and the yeah, what are the crime rates and blah blah blah? Kevin (29:18.176) Mm-hmm. Kevin (29:21.92) School district ratings and well my kid is really good at this and so why I need to know, it's not nefarious questions, it's just questions that you can't get answers to even if the data exists. All right, next up from LinkedIn news story, Sora, open AI, man is this the open AI episode? didn't notice this at first. Sora. topped a million downloads in five days, even though it is kind of limited in access. I felt like the coolest I felt probably all year when Julie had to text me and be like, can you get my husband who is like famous, like truly famous person? And his name's Kevin. No, he's on YouTube, really famous, doing what he loves. And so I sent one of my four invites over there. Julie Jarnagin (30:04.605) In his in his in his world, yes Kevin (30:18.676) And I was pretty, I enjoyed watching the videos he made actually. When you share an invite, you get automatically connected. So now I get to watch his hunting expedition videos in Sora. Julie Jarnagin (30:28.841) You can probably tell which ones have the kids input in it. Some of them are our kids saying, can you make this dad? So you can probably tell the difference. Kevin (30:33.107) okay. Beth Russell (30:35.79) Okay, I need to find him. I opened up the app and I was like, I don't know what to do. Kevin (30:41.28) It's it's interesting. So Sora is a video prompt tool and and I mean, some people are calling it a social network. I think that's it's a it's a generative AI broadcast and creative engine. trying to be more descriptive. The unique thing about it is that you can scan your face, say a couple of words and then put yourself in very easily. The quality of the representation is clearly different for Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI. He probably did some 3D full body scan thing because when you use him in a video, it looks great. It looks like him every time you do yourself and you just get this little thing of your face. It's wild how it can out- You can also, if you're connected to people or they give away their likeness to be used, you can add anyone else into a video. So we were doing this right the day before the summit. and I were putting each other in wrapping videos and Brian Taft and I are in a video doing new home sales stuff together. So that is interesting. And then the ability to remix anything that anyone's already made very easily. So if you do get into Sora, Beth Russell (31:47.202) They were hilarious. Kevin (32:01.202) My current favorite trend, I do probably spend three minutes a day looking at this, people, because one of the rules they made is that brands have to tell them implicitly, we don't want to be part of this. So the race was on immediately. You had Minecraft, Jesus playing Minecraft. You had SpongeBob SquarePants doing stuff, Pikachu involved. Bob Ross is a big trend. But to me, the most creative one is it looks like a ring doorbell camera. And then it has I think it started originally with like a cat getting pulled up by a tornado via the ring camera. And then, you you can just swipe to the side and see everyone else's variation. So it's like, do it again, but with a horse. Do it again, but with a bull. Do it again, but with a wizard who cast lightning. And then it just like watching the iterations is is really It goes to some wild places. But it's something that people are playing with. So the compelling idea around this to me is it's not compelling in a good way necessarily either. We all need to be thinking about what's gonna happen to this. Casey Neistat, one of my favorite YouTubers posted a video basically saying like the challenge is that in most platforms, 99 % of people consume the content and 1 % make the content. But if suddenly, even if that just goes up to 5%, the amount of content to be consumed by everyone else is exponential and everyone starts watching their own thing or everyone kind of just starts ignoring all of it because they get overwhelmed. This idea of just when you can create something with a few lines of text, then what... Kevin (34:02.12) what ends up getting actually watched in that sea of what the kids are calling slop these days. Julie Jarnagin (34:07.615) Well, and that's why it's so interesting for my husband is because that's his livelihood. They make videos on a certain topic, podcast videos. So once people can do that without any expertise, without a camera crew, without somebody writing a script, without an editor. So it is like a where what's next for somebody like them that makes content for a living basically. Kevin (34:15.22) Mm-hmm. Kevin (34:36.02) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (34:37.621) So yeah, he's like, has a love-hate relationship with it right now. He's like, this is terrible, this is awful, I want to make 400 other videos, you know. Beth Russell (34:50.625) Yeah Kevin (34:53.162) Yeah, Reid Hoffman, who's a big investor in open AI, also, I think the original creator or founder of LinkedIn, I think, posted on LinkedIn. He said, every major technology starts as a novelty. When Alexander Graham Bell tried to sell his invention to Western Union in 1876, they declined, calling the telephone an electrical toy with no commercial future. When the first personal computer arrived, IBM executives dismissed them as hobbyist gadgets. and then his claim is that Sora is the next step in that lineage. There is this, I think the genius of Sora is putting yourself in it is fun. I haven't actually shown my kids because I know what will happen once they realize that they could put themselves in any situation. But it's also mentally exhausting as an app experience to use. That's why I love the Ring cam. Beth Russell (35:38.22) Non-stop. Kevin (35:51.857) meme trend that's happening, but after two minutes, your brain just is kind of, my brain is like, I can't do this anymore. Take me back to my golden retrievers and Instagram. That's where I wanna be. It's not relaxing. It's so, every swipe is intense, almost because the platform knows how to craft what seems like an intense quick short video. Julie Jarnagin (36:00.533) Mm-hmm. Kevin (36:21.832) It doesn't make you feel like, other social networks tricked us for a lot longer of making us feel good before we realized, maybe we shouldn't be on that quite, I don't have that same experience on this one. But it is interesting. All right, next up, from techcrunch.com, California becomes the first state to regulate AI companion chatbots, like chat GPT. The law SB 243 is designed to protect children and vulnerable users. And it does such things as I think every five hours, the chatbot has to remind you that it's not alive. As an example, other guardrails like making sure that they know the age of the user, that it's somehow verified and then it will lock down and restrict certain categories and topics, which makes complete sense. I'm kind of surprised. I'm not normally the person who is a fan of regulation or California leading in regulation, but in this case, most of this seems pretty like, yeah, we should have some of this in place. Beth Russell (37:32.472) Yeah, it's sound. It's sound logic. Julie Jarnagin (37:36.211) Yeah, what's, I mean, what's hard is that we don't know some of the, we laugh about AIs gonna like robots taking over the world Terminator kind of stuff, but sometimes we're not good at thinking through what the actual consequences are gonna be. And so we're having to learn from some terrible things that have happened because of AI, know, talking to it and then doing terrible things to themselves. That kind of thing before we know so we've got to learn and change things quickly Just because of that. So I think that's the scary part Yeah, we think of it being like a movie, but there are real consequences to some of these things So, I mean there are gonna have to be fast actions and with quick actions that also is scary because they're having to make these decisions and these laws so Quickly what other consequences so I think it's just the speed of all these things that can feel overwhelming Kevin (38:30.686) Mm-hmm. Kevin (38:34.174) Yeah, and it is every three hours that they have to remind that you're human. And this kind of, it's not so much targeted at the major players like Anthropic and OpenAI, as it is these companies like Character AI and some of what Meta's doing where it's just like, you don't need real friends. There's that companion AI pendant subway campaign in New York City where like, Beth Russell (38:53.474) Yeah. I'm here for you. Kevin (39:02.474) think they spent a million dollars to put up all these ads and then immediately they're all getting like people are vandalizing them but I think almost appropriately so of like this is weird like be a real person interact with real people so I yeah it's interesting that that they're taking that step and I think we approve the last but not least from realtor.com Government shutdown freezes USDA loans leaving buyers without zero down options. I know Beth doesn't really have an opinion on any of this, military families like the shutdown as a whole, you if you're not part of a family that's immediately affected by that, I think it's just a, it was insightful to just say in certain pockets of the country. This is having an outsize effect on what, like we're already talking about certainty being a challenge. There's a whole bunch of people who have a whole lot of extra uncertainty right now. Beth Russell (40:12.418) Yeah, I've had to remind quite a bit of my builders of like, you know, they're seeing a dip in October and it's like, you realize your demographic is not getting paid right now. Military is getting paid, thankfully. And that went through, they quote unquote found funds for it. So that's a win for us as you know. But the other thing is like, there's so many government workers on furlough. There's people that are... working without pay, people who aren't allowed to work at all and aren't getting paid. And it's really scary and uncertain. I mean, hopefully with elections coming up soon, it should end by the end of this month. At least we're hopeful, but you have to remain cognizant of the, like, yeah, you want to sell houses, but if your demographic is not getting paid, you can't force them into feeling comfortable or in your words, Kevin, feeling that level of certainty where they're ready to move forward because they don't know what's going to happen next. And still, even after this ends, their jobs are still at stake because so much is still moving so rapidly within that sector that it's a little bit, it's a little bit scary, a little bit nerve wracking, if you will. Julie Jarnagin (41:26.549) Just good example of this context when you're storytelling that Beth's been talking about. If we just look at the numbers, then we're like, we just need more eyeballs, more leads, more this. Well, what's causing the difference? know, just knowing those, the things that's affecting it right now, being the expert in your market, knowing what's happening in your market. And this is just one example. that it didn't hit me, it hit Beth before I realized it, you know, because she's living it. So just having your, having that ear open to that kind of thing, having a curiosity about why the numbers may be changing, what the market's doing. Beth Russell (42:04.236) Yeah, and it's beyond just the people not getting paid. It's also having a real impact in terms of the structure of how we sell homes. like flood insurance isn't going through or it's extremely delayed. USDA loans are on hold. They're still taking FHA and VA loans, but it's taking longer to process. for those who are planning and trying to set goals for the end of the year, you need to add another 15 days to that, which essentially in some areas we may already be hitting up against that point. Because if it's taking longer than 30 days to close alone and we don't know what the speed is and how the backlog, once things come back, you gotta prepare and be realistic of what your expectations are for the remainder of the year. Kevin (42:49.386) Yep. From the article, it says Julia, a mortgage lender in Yukon, Oklahoma, Julie said she had a who originally scheduled for a September 30th closing the day before the government shut down. The client is now paying the seller $150 a day to compensate them for the delayed closing. So what are we on week three and a half right now? So it's starting to be real money. And again, that seller Julie Jarnagin (42:56.309) Shout out. Julie Jarnagin (43:12.051) Mm-hmm. It starts adding up fast. Kevin (43:19.878) might not be directly affected by the shutdown at all, but they're not getting the funds for their house, which means that they probably aren't planning to become homeless when they sell their house. They have to move somewhere else and that person's now waiting for their home to close. So it is a cascading effect in markets like this. Beth Russell (43:37.55) Yeah. I'm curious to find out what ends up happening afterwards and then what adjustments are they going to make from a rate point of view in order to boost the housing economy back up. Kevin (43:53.632) Well, it's already the 10 year, as we're recording on Friday, October 7th, the 10 year treasury, which is what mortgage rates are predominantly based on is under 4%, which that all sounds good and it is good for housing. The broader economy rates going lower isn't a good thing in the short term. It's good if you have lots of money and capital in the bank and now you can go invest it. But if you're potentially losing a job or. hours getting cut, that kind of other things that are happening, then it's gonna be bumpy. But this is the bright side. Every downturn ends in recovery and the pent up demand is real. I think we would take that, I know most every builder would take that trade off of like broader economy slowing down, a race dropping because there's enough demand, pent up demand for. housing and people wanting to move. I saw a stat, I wish I had had it, that basically we are back to where the average mortgage rate is the same as it was pre-pandemic. Beth Russell (45:02.382) Hmm. Kevin (45:03.464) Now again, a lot of people don't have mortgages anymore. Their homes are just paid off, bless you. But for those people who do have rates, we're kind of, we're over this hump of everyone having this very extended rate to the upside. All right, that'll do it for this week. Figure out what you're gonna dress up for for Halloween with the kids. Julie Jarnagin (45:32.223) That time. Beth Russell (45:32.28) Thanks, bye bye. Kevin (45:33.504) It's that time. See ya.