514. Your Audience Can Tell When It's AI with Ryan Levesque

Confession: I bought Ryan Levesque's first book, Ask, way back in the day, so getting to sit down with another Ryan to talk about his new one, Return to Real, was a treat. His story starts with two failed attempts to sell his company and an email to his audience titled "an embarrassing confession." In it he admitted that for seven years, the emails with his name on them were written by a team of writers and, more recently, by AI. From there we get into why people are craving real stuff right now and what the science of dopamine and oxytocin has to do with the videos we make.

If you run a video business and you've been feeling weird about where AI fits, this one's for you. I told him about a fully AI mockumentary we made for a software client (and my mixed feelings about it). Ryan uses AI every day and also lives on a 150-acre farm in Vermont, so he's living in that tension too. We talk about making one flagship piece that shows the work you actually want to be doing, and why showing your process can make the final product worth more. Honestly, this hit me hard, especially coming off the Camino and rethinking what kind of work I want our studio taking on.

In This Episode:

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!
• [04:03] Meet Ryan Levesque
• [06:21] Return to Real
• [09:16] AI-Generated Video
• [16:05] Trust
• [18:27] Technology Advancements
• [21:12] Dopamine and Oxytocin
• [24:31] Oxytocin Economy
• [34:36] Provenance Premium
• [37:21] The Double Craving
• [44:02] Authenticity
• [51:29] Connect with Ryan
• [52:46] Outro

Key takeaways

• Showing your process makes the final product more valuable. Ryan calls it the Provenance Premium, and he's got a $450 million painting to back it up.
• Emotional storytelling is one of the only ways to create oxytocin (the trust chemical) from a distance, and that's a filmmaker's home turf.
• Make one flagship piece that matches the work you actually want, and let it be the lighthouse that pulls in the right clients.
• Watch for your "strategic self," the chameleon version of you that shape-shifts to win the deal.

Quotes

• "If you're not analog by design, you will become digital by default." (Ryan Levesque)
• "If the last decade belonged to dopamine, I believe that the next decade belongs to oxytocin." (Ryan Levesque)
• "Choose your hard, otherwise your hard will choose you." (Ryan Levesque)
• "My goal isn't to create virality here. My goal is to create connection." (Ryan Koral)

Guest Links 

• returntorealbook.com (the book, plus a free first chapter and Ryan's newsletter,