Meredith's Husband 0:24

All right, some questions with the help of Hello Meredith. Some more questions have come in. Happy to answer. Meredith, would you like to help us get started by reading the first question?

What Agentic AI Actually Is

Meredith 0:35

Love to. The first question is what is agentic AI and how might it help complete tasks or disrupt creativity for SEO and photography?

Meredith's Husband 0:49

All right, good question. Have you heard this term agenc? No. AI? Well, I you have, because we've talked about I mentioned it quite a while ago.

Meredith 0:56

Yeah.

Meredith's Husband 0:57

Agentic AI. And there is some confusion. There's definitely some hand employee. Definitely some confusion. Well, first, agentic AI. The word agentic, it comes from agent. Okay, so it's so you've had have you heard of people creating agents for AI? That's something else they're doing. Okay, so I'll first tell you the way Google has introduced this, which I think is kind of confusing and not really accurate. And then I'll I'll try to answer what I I think this person is asking. So Google introduced agentic search with the idea and then eventually a commercial, and they keep doubling down on this idea of like they use the example of a woman shopping for dresses.

Meredith 1:41

I don't know if you I don't know how I can identify with that. I'll have to take a moment.

Meredith's Husband 1:45

But anyway, the the idea is you use agentic search and you say to Google, hey, I'm looking for a dress, and Google will, you know, you tell it what kind of dresses you like, and you give it a photo of yourself or some photos of yourself, and it will go and find the dresses you like and then show you a little video of those dresses on you.

Meredith 2:03

Why haven't I heard about this?

Meredith's Husband 2:05

Yeah.

Meredith 2:06

I think it's a good I think it's good for both of us that I haven't.

Meredith's Husband 2:09

Yeah, thank you.

Meredith 2:10

Yet.

Meredith's Husband 2:12

So I don't really get why they I mean, I guess I do get why they use that as the example, because people use Google to search. That's not really what I think of when I think of agentic AI. Agentic AI refers to using an agent. And an agent is a an autonomous kind of bot that will go out and do things for you. Like Do they take 10%? No, they don't do anything. Uh versus you sitting down and giving Chat GPT or Claude a prompt, you you give it some instructions like, hey, go out and do this. And I've seen ex I've you know people make YouTube videos, they try this out and they create an agent that say has access to their Robinhood uh website account, which is like buys and trades stocks and stuff. And they say, just go and and use this as a general rule and just make as much money as you can. And they give it a hundred bucks and it goes and starts making trades for you. Now, I will say the videos that I have seen doing this, they always seem to follow this kind of general concept. It does really well, it makes some money, and then it loses it all. That seems and I've seen it do other things. Like I saw somebody create an agent that was supposed to help uh coach him into building a business. And it did really and it controlled everything. This guy just did what his AI agent told him to do. And he started with no money, and the AI agent was saying, okay, go stay in this hostel. So you're spending no money while you're you know doing these first steps. And the guy did it and he made a little bit of money doing some first steps. And then the AI agent said, okay, now as a reward, we're gonna take a step up from the hostel. And then it said, then it booked him a room at like in like a penthouse suite for like$2,000 a night. And the guy was like, you know, there could have been some middle ground there because I made you know$3,000 and I just spent almost all of it on a you know. So the the the point is I don't know what the point is. These are just uh I think they're interesting stories. That's kind of what a gentic AI, it's like doing stuff for you. It's more than just answering questions, answering your prompts.

Meredith 4:25

Aaron Powell How much foresight does it have, though?

Meredith's Husband 4:28

What do you mean, foresight?

Meredith 4:29

I mean going from a hostel to a penthouse, it missed a bunch of steps.

Meredith's Husband 4:34

See, it doesn't like it's it's not really that trustworthy.

Meredith 4:37

Yeah, I'd say.

Meredith's Husband 4:39

So, and I think that kind of applies to the answer, is like the the creativity concern, the strategic concern, a Gentec AI is gonna remove the drudgery, like the monotonous tasks. It's not going to and it can expedite the like the question was related to uh how is it going to disrupt creativity or help complete, how is it going to disrupt or help complete uh SEO and creative tasks like photography. So I think those stories kind of illustrate that it's you don't want to over-rely on it, is the point. The person who uses how to use AI as an assistant is going to win. The person who becomes reliant upon AI to do things for them, gonna, you know, they might find themselves way ahead and then one day way behind. Like that's that's the danger. I hope that answers. I think that answers that question.

Meredith 5:35

Aaron Powell What I don't understand is disrupt creativity. What how might it disrupt it?

Meredith's Husband 5:41

I think what he or she means is kind of replace, change the way creativity happens. I think creativity is, and at least for the foreseeable future, it will remain like things for you and I to do. We are the creative ones, and then when we need XYZ, we need the details done, then that's when we turn to AI.

Meredith 6:03

Yeah.

Meredith's Husband 6:04

We don't ask AI what we should do.

Meredith 6:06

Right.

Meredith's Husband 6:06

We tell AI what to do for us.

LLMS.txt And AI Crawlers Explained

Meredith 6:09

Right. What we need to get done and need help with. Question two. We put an LMS file on our website, and no AI crawlers have accessed it in months. Is it useless?

Meredith's Husband 6:24

Uh okay, so good question, very specific. Just quickly, an LLMS.txt file is like a sitemap for your website, except whereas a sitemap is for Google, an LLMS file is for AI bots. So it helps supposedly, and this was some of the early advice. Uh LLMS files help AI bots access your site. First, so good job for number one, putting this on your site and then being able to look at your log files to see how often it it gets accessed. Now, this kind of matches the overall trend of what of what is happening. LLMS files are not getting hit as much as people uh thought they would.

Meredith 7:08

Why is that?

Meredith's Husband 7:10

Well, first remember what AI is doing. AI is not going out and indexing the website in general like Google is. It doesn't just go out and visit random sites. It would only access a file on your website if someone specifically asks details about your business or about your website where that file would be needed. Okay, so it's it's for that reason alone, it's not something that's going to be accessed the same as like a site map would be with the same frequency. So yes, the trend is like people are not seeing it accessed as much as they they thought they would. However, doesn't mean we're still very early in the process. Like I kind of think of where we are right now with AI. Do you remember like VHS and beta?

Meredith 7:55

Yes.

Meredith's Husband 7:56

And there was a time period there, like nobody knew which was gonna be better. Half the people bought VHS machines, half the people bought beta machines. Nobody had any idea what was gonna work. That's kind of where we are with a lot of AI things right now. It's still best practice to have that LLMS file in place.

Meredith 8:15

Just in case.

Meredith's Husband 8:16

Yes. And there have been stories, like small independent developers say, we here they're here, they show their logs. They say, uh, we created the LLMS file, and the next day we saw this activity, and it's really great. So that sort of thing does happen, but yeah, on a bigger trend, it it's it's uh hasn't been picked up, I would say, like people were thinking or hoping. But definitely I say keep doing it.

Meredith 8:41

Yeah. Couldn't hurt.

Meredith's Husband 8:43

Because really, what is it? It probably takes what 30 minutes to create this? Like it doesn't, it's not a huge time-intensive thing. Uh, and it's I'd say it's certainly it's worth that investment in terms of your time.

Will Google Penalize AI Content

Meredith 8:54

Question three. Will Google penalize my site if I use AI to write my content?

Meredith's Husband 9:03

Okay, another good question. And you asked this in our previous Q ⁇ A session. That's not where I got the question, by the way. So Google's official position, no, Google's not going to penalize your site because you have AI written content or AI generated content. What they penalize is low quality content, regardless of how it was made. And if content is generated by AI and it's and you're not telling it exactly what to help you create, that's probably gonna be low quality content because AI is not gonna be able to come up with like your unique creative viewpoint on things. It's gonna come up with what else is out there on the internet. Let me repackage it a little bit and put it together. That's low quality content.

Meredith 9:47

Because it's already being used.

Meredith's Husband 9:49

Because it's already out there. It's not it's nothing new. Yes.

Meredith 9:52

Right. It's not true to your voice or brand.

Meredith's Husband 9:56

Correct. Now, Google has done, I they they claim to have done hundreds of thousands of tests to identify AI-generated content, but not so that they are right away going to penalize those sites. That's just a red flag. If it if they can identify content as being 100% generated by AI, that's a red flag that they're gonna look at that content a little more carefully and evaluate that content a little more carefully. Doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna get demoted.

Meredith 10:27

Right. But it's a red flag from Google, and I don't think we want to accumulate any red flags.

Meredith's Husband 10:33

No, you do want to stay away from the red flags.

Meredith 10:36

Yeah, in people and in Google.

Meredith's Husband 10:39

And so there have been a lot of other tests, uh, companies like SEMrush and a lot of uh companies that focus on research have done similar tests trying to determine what type of content does rank. And although nobody can identify with 100% accuracy whether an article was written by AI, the consensus seems to be, and almost all the studies seem to show this, that the content that typically is ranking near the top of Google right now is content that is generated by a mix. So an article that is written kind of half by you and assisted by AI typically is what is going to be ranking well. Because it's going to be written well. Better like the grammar, it's gonna be written more good than if you write it yourself.

Meredith 11:23

More better.

Meredith's Husband 11:24

It's gonna be the most best fastest. But the way to think about this is AI should be your writing partner. Like you are the expert. AI is like, you know, uh famous people, Steve Jobs, they they write a biography. Well, they don't actually write it, they have a writing partner. So think of AI kind of like that.

Meredith 11:42

That's a good way.

Meredith's Husband 11:43

And just remember the the penalty is not going to be with the detection of AI. Just having AI written content is not going to be a penalty. But it is going to get more attention from Google if you do.

Meredith 11:58

And not necessarily good attention.

Meredith's Husband 12:00

Correct. Yeah.

Meredith 12:01

Red flag attention.

AI As A Tool Not A Crutch

Meredith's Husband 12:02

Right. And this reinforces the approach that I just keep on saying AI is a tool.

Meredith 12:07

Yeah.

Meredith's Husband 12:07

It's not going to do your work for you, it helps you get your work done.

Meredith 12:10

Nice.

Meredith's Husband 12:11

You still got to swing the hammer.

Meredith 12:14

To break the glass.

Meredith's Husband 12:17

Traditionally, not what you would use a hammer for, but good idea.