There's a kind of sales tool that records you once and has AI clone you into an avatar. The avatar can then send personalised videos to hundreds of prospects, each one saying their name and their company, in your face and your voice.
Adam Boita, CMO of Ecologi, tried it. Briefly.
"It was just uncanny valley," he said at aiblLIVE in London on 20 October. He told his team they could test it, but only on a handful of prospects. Fewer than 50 sends.
Why he pulled the plug
Ecologi works with more than 16,000 businesses, helping them fund climate and nature projects. Adam was clear about what they're really selling. "We're in the trust business," he said. "We're in the building relationship business."
Some of their biggest relationships take, by his reckoning, around 18 months to build. And if the very first contact is an avatar that someone can tell is AI, "then there's no trust, there's no human level in it."
Ecologi asks customers why they chose them. According to Adam, the top answer is the people and the trust. One of his slides put the whole idea in a line: "In an AI world where content is free, trust is the scarce asset."
The better question
The best moment in the session came from the interviewer, Luke Costley-White of Dojo. Everyone asks what they should do with AI. Luke said the question he thinks about more, alongside trust, is the opposite.
"What wouldn't you do?"
"What would you never give away to AI?"
I think that's the most useful question a business owner can ask right now. Most people are busy making a list of everything AI could do for them. Far fewer are making the other list.
Why this matters to me
This session landed close to home, because it's something I feel strongly about.
Brand is more important. A lot of small businesses spend their energy chasing leads. More outreach, more automation, more volume. What they're not doing is building brand. Not building reputation. Not building trust.
AI makes volume almost free. That's exactly why it's dangerous for a small business. You can send a thousand messages that sound personal and aren't. And every one that gets spotted as fake chips away at the only thing that really sets you apart.
Adam is no AI sceptic. He spent much of the session talking about how his team uses it. He just drew a line in the one place where the brand lives: the first human contact.
Drawing your own line
So where's your line? For a coach, it might be the first conversation with a new client. For a tradesperson, the quote. For a café, the welcome at the door. For almost everyone, it's the moment someone decides whether to trust you.
Imagine your customers knowing, without you ever saying it, that a real person was on the other end when it mattered.
That's a brand people trust in a world full of things they don't. Word of mouth that comes from real moments. And a reputation that does more for you than any automated sequence could.
Two short lists would do it: the jobs you're happy for AI to help with, and the moments you'll always do yourself.
Keep the second one short and specific. What would be on yours?
