AI in Schools, YouTube Partners with Amazon, and the Good Good gaffe

0:00In this episode, we're going to talk about AI. We're going to talk about schools. We're going to talk about Google and AI. We're going to talk about YouTube and Amazon's partnership. And yes, we're going to talk about Good Good Golf. Welcome to Creator Upload, your Creator Economy podcast. I'm Lauren Schnipper. And I'm Joshua Cohen. Josh, it's a big day. Both New York City and LAUSD schools have banned generative AI for kids in schools. Is that a new development? Is that a developing development? That is a hot off the press. So New York City bans AI in elementary and middle schools. This is up two days ago and 20 to 21 hours ago on CNN.

0:38New York City is banning the use of generative artificial intelligence for public schools from second through eighth grade. LAUSD adopts a moratorium on student AI use. This is fascinating and happening in real time. It's really, really interesting what is happening around technology in schools as quickly as it's happening. Like so many school districts right now, parents are up in arms. I mean, there's lawsuits happening. And unlike kind of everything else in the world, this is kind of happening at record speed. Is the impetus for this thinking that there's a fundamental detrimental effect for kids to have access to these AI tools in school while their hippocampus is still developing?

1:22And perhaps later in life, they'll be more able to, I don't know, responsibly use this kind of technology? Let me ask you a question, Joshua. This is the way I always describe you. You're one of those really annoying people who didn't do any work. I'm guessing who didn't do any work at all, right? Didn't do any, didn't read the assignments and do other things. Night before, stays up all night, reads the whole thing, gets an A. Yes or no? Didn't get an A, got an A and a better grade than you did. Right. Like, did like well. Like, I might have gotten the same grade, but I had to do the work like throughout the year, right?

1:59And so you're one of these annoying people who did it last minute. Quick question. If AI was around when you were in high school, true or false, you would have used AI in that last night before the test? A thousand percent. But I think about this often where I also think I would have been a better student because I would have had it explain more esoteric concepts to me than I could have figured out on my own or through teacher interactions or through other student interactions. Yeah, but you're making the inherent assumption that the way that AI is going to explain something is going to be either better or even factual.

2:33And AI itself says a lot of these things have mistakes in them. So I think you have identified the problem in one of the many problems with kids having access to AI. They need to figure out how to complicate things. Because like I am like I pride myself and my kids are only in elementary school. This will probably change. I don't care about my kids grades. I care about if they're really struggling. Like I want to know, but I would expect to hear from the teacher if that were the case. Right. I don't. It's it is like not to get all bachelorette franchised on us. It's the journey, right? It's the journey they're going on, not the destination, not the grade.

3:08And so if you have this tool that has fundamental, first of all, like flaws in it that kids are using as they, it is the gospel versus like a piece of text that has been vetted and curated for them. I think that's inherently wrong. And then there's also just like the bottom line is, is that like, okay, let's pretend in a world that you were using it responsibly when you were in high school. What about the like 90 % of other because they aren't going to use it responsibly and they're just going to have it do all its work. And it's kind of like a public health mentality here to it, where although it might be better for individuals, maybe it's not better for the entire group.

3:40It's not. And also, like, let's just talk about like the crawl before you walk whole thing. Right. Like you and I can use AI today because we had to go through the messy process of getting a bad grade because we didn't study or getting a good grade because we did study or and figuring it out or not figuring it out and dealing with the emotional trauma of like that good or bad. And you're taking away all of that. And then you're going to have a class, classes of kids, not just graduating like high school. Let's talk about like college, law school, a medical school that don't actually know anything.

4:10Like you have to get in the weeds of this stuff. I mean, there's many, I'm seeing all these things about like all these universities that are like banning laptops. Like I think, I want to say it was the University of Illinois or something recently that was said like, no laptops are allowed like first year law students in class. Like they're just like, no, you can't do it. It's because it's like 100 % of people are going to take the easy road if it's available to them. Like literally like if not 199%. Like we all will. And kids especially will. So I think are there positive ways that AI could be used for kids?

4:42Totally. I think that they are far less than what the negatives are. So I think in a perfect world here then the kids wouldn't have access to these AI tools until they reach a certain level. and when they reach a certain grade, then they would have access because it would be deemed that they are, again, mature enough or responsible enough to have access to this tool. And there'd be certain safety rules or guardrails around that. Not in my perfect world. I think, but if AI is going to be omnipresent factor in this world, people need to know how to interact with it. It's really hard to figure out how to put in a prompt.

5:18That's real difficult. Let's give a kid a one-on-one device in kindergarten so that they know how to do a prompt when they're 25 years old. Like, you know what I mean? Like, these arguments are a farce. Like, a farce. It's ridiculous. Like, my favorite is, we need to have tech in schools to prepare them for this technological work, to be leaders in Silicon Valley. What are the leaders in Silicon Valley doing? Sending their kids to Waldorf schools that have zero technology. Because they know that they need to have, like, incredibly strategic, deductive reasoning minds and know how to be critical thinkers, of which technology strips all of that.

5:51Let's not, not to mention the fact that like the Steve Jobs of the world weren't like scrolling and doing prompts. They were building physical computers. Building is something different, right? That's not an algorithm. That's not AI, right? It's building. I still think it would have done way better in non-Euclidean geometry if I could have had AI explain it to me in the terms of World of Warcraft or something similar. And what would you be doing with your life today? Should that have happened? I don't know. Who knows? Sky's the limit. God only knows. Instead, look where you are now. By the way, a friend of mine the other day was like, what exactly is on that whiteboard behind Josh?

6:24Yeah, it's cryptic, right? And I said, don't worry, it hasn't changed in like five years. It's literally. No, it changes. It changes. There's subtle differences in changes for sure. No, yeah, subtle. Like literally one day you'll just be like, what if this numbers is going to be like in red instead of like a black? Just be like, what does that mean? My mastermind brain trust behind me. Don't worry about it. Just out of view. Just out of view. Don't worry about it. On the heels of this AI conversation, guess what? But even Google is cautioning YouTube advertisers not to lose what their human touch, Joshua.

6:55So in 2026, YouTube and Google, they sort of put AI at the center of their pitch to brand partners, right? AI powered tools. They got sort of tons of airplay during the New Fronts event. The Brand Connect Hub has been, you know, added. They add all these AI augmentations and all that stuff. So AI is like deep in all of these products. However, there's a new post that just came out from Google's iHealth that's basically like, But don't forget to be human because we have to remind people of that right now. Right. They said human voices still play an important roles in brand creative. So don't worry, guys.

7:26Google still wants you to be a human. So they highlight three particular findings from Google's demand gen analysis. Advertisers who include text overlays and visualized products in their first five seconds of a video can receive slight upticks in their conversation rate as a result. But the biggest effect mentioned these posts concerns speech when a human voice is present within a piece of creative conversion rate increases by 12 percent. So they're basically like, listen, as an example, humans talking, humans generally like, and you should probably continue to use that in your ads. So I just think it's, it's very interesting.

8:02Like these, I think, I think there's also this notion with tech companies that they have, even though we know, we know this and we all know this, that they haven't figured out, they have no idea what they're doing. And so they're trying to also find the balance between AI and humans. I'm assuming, Josh, you want no humans in anything. Is that still your stance? I'm totally fine with having humans and things. I definitely like having humans and things. Just curious. Especially because this last mile or 100 yards or 10 feet or one foot of AI, I think is going to be incredibly difficult to cross that chasm, especially in terms of human speech and video.

8:37And I still think that in the videos that are on platforms today, even if people, there's a hint of it being AI, obviously they're going to trust it less. They're going to think less of the content creator that put it out and the brand that's behind it. Google is basically saying that human voice is important. We also are making automated dubbing tools that are becoming more sophisticated all the time to clone human voices and make them seem more natural for your audiences. So they are striving this balance. And I think Google is doing what it should be as a huge international corporation that does billions of dollars a year and advertising revenue steering its clients in the right direction.

9:18And there is kind of a balance they need to hit. But it just, I still feel, it just feels always weird to me where it's the companies that are producing all of this AI technology are also saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold back on this a little bit and just use it a little bit more responsibly or think about your use before. I get it. I think there's a term for like when you create the problem and then also the solution to like solve the problem. It's like it's actually like not that unusual. And I think that the big tech is the number one culprit of this, to your point. Yeah, there's definitely a German word for that.

9:51It's got to be a German word. I want to just really quickly tell you the power of YouTube advertising. So my kids, as we know, I don't let them watch that much YouTube. But when I that's really the only time they really see commercials, because other than that, they're like watching Netflix or whatever. And my younger son, who just turned eight years old, is obsessed as a result with Bounty, the paper towels. I mean, he is just convinced that Bounty is the superior paper towel. And where do we get our paper towels? Obviously Costco. And so for his birthday, he was allowed to buy Bounty paper towels.

10:23The pack was like three times the price of Costco. He's obsessed. He's like, you know, you can reuse it. You can wipe it and then you can reuse. You can open it up and you can reuse. He's like obsessed. So, Lauren, important question for you. Is this from paid media, like actual media ads that he's seeing on YouTube? Or is it from creators who are integrating Bounty into their shows? I'm 99 % sure it's paid media. I don't think it's integrations, but I'm going to double check on that. Because I've seen some Bounty. There's a jingle that he sings that I can't remember right now. Like, this is like a regular kind of commercial situation.

11:01I love that. And the ads marketing team at Google should totally pick that up. you they should make a case study out of your kid by the way totally unrelated the best birthday gift he got besides the bounty was uh my mother-in-law and we were like i'm so sorry like she sends him this card we're like i don't you're not gonna like it gives her a trader joe gives him a trader joe's gift card and i was like i'll give you the 25 dollars and said he was like are you kidding mommy now i get to buy whatever i want in trader joe's he was like this is amazing had the best time. And it's actually a genius gift for kids.

11:35It's essentially you're giving them a credit card and saying, like, go crazy in a supermarket. It's like supermarkets. It's actually, I've never been more. I don't believe that she knew how great it was going to be. I think it was literally like, I don't know what to get this kid. Genius. Highly recommend. Trader Joe's gift cards for kids. I'll try it. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. He got the car. He was like, I get to finally buy the watermelon cucumber juice I've always wanted. Yeah, that's great. Do you know what I mean? And then he bought some agency is a great idea. Yes. That's what I'm trying to tell you.

12:01Gave him all this agency. He's like, I get to go get what I want. Next up, I really want to talk about this YouTube and Amazon partnership that lets creators sell a curated catalog of highly requested and trending products. So Neil Mohan in 2026 wrote this big letter saying YouTube was focused on making its platform a premier shopping destination. Welcome to every platform where viewers can buy products recommended by creators without ever leaving the YouTube app. So YouTube and Amazon have now officially joined forces and will let U.S.-based creators who are enrolled in both the YouTube Partner Program and the Amazon Influencer Program or Amazon Associates Program sell Amazon products directly within their long and short form videos.

12:43I think this is genius. And I think what I particularly think is genius about this is like, obviously, this is somewhat of a competitor or a competitor to TikTok shop. But what's really smart is that they have like an Amazon like fulfillment program that they have to basically do this, the shipping and and all the things where YouTube doesn't have to do this in this situation, because obviously, it's taken care of by Amazon. So I think that's like crazy, crazy smart. and just a couple stats. YouTube says there are now more than 1 million creators signed up for shopping and that the gross merchandise value of products sold through shopping grew 13x from Q1 24 to Q1 2026.

13:18Do you like this partnership, Josh? So YouTube has had these partnerships. They've integrated Shopify into the shopping shelf on YouTube and into creators' videos where they can purchase Shopify items through long form and short form. Having Amazon on board too, I think there had to have been internal discussion about like which direction YouTube wants to take here. And same thing on the Amazon side, where do they want to try to go at this their own and compete with TikTok Shop and have their own kind of enclosed infrastructure? Because that also is very compelling. You can't do TikTok Shop not through TikTok.

13:50You have to be part of that ecosystem. You have to create your own storefront, which allows these brands and these sellers to have a lot more control over their data and insights they're getting through the platform too. But with this YouTube Amazon partnership, obviously YouTube doesn't control every facet of this shopping experience. It's making a play where they're saying, hey, we have a global audience. We have billions of people on the platform every single month. And we just want to be the go to stop for everything. If that means partnering with someone who could become or is a major competitor, that's fine with us for now.

14:24It's actually sort of more of a TikTok move, if you think about it, because TikTok's made all these interesting partnerships over the last year or so instead of like trying to build everything in-house. So I think it's really smart. I have to just not to like lose the through line of my kid's birthday. I have to tell you a really insane fulfillment story. So my mother, of course, is like, you have to buy him a gift. I can just use my credit card. Fine. So what do we get him? We got him this like giant, call it a beanbag, but it's in the shape of a cat. He loves cats. We get this box. We get two boxes.

14:52in one of the boxes is 11 barbecue tool sets, literally 11. We looked it up, valued at$200 each. And the other box is four ponchos, adult wipes, three boxes of adult wipes, not baby wipes. Okay. And like, and like surgical gloves and the exterior of the beanbag, not the interior. And I'm like, what is this? So I call the company and they're like, we don't sell that items. So the fulfillment center where their items are located, somebody completely messed up, obviously, and sent me like amazing. Somebody just went rogue, went rogue. And I got like this insane. I mean, it looked after a while like this is like a serial killers like order, right?

15:31Like between the wipes, the gloves and the barbecue tools. Like it's just so crazy. But they're like, listen, we don't know what company this was for because it's a giant fulfillment center. So unless you're here otherwise in the next day or so, like you can dispose of them. So again, we looked it up. These barbecue tools are$200 each. I've got like$2 ,000 worth of barbecue tools. Don't think I'm not trying to sell those on Craigslist. Not Craigslist. Where do we go? Facebook Marketplace. Yeah. Is that insane? Yeah. Lauren, getting back to what people on Craigslist are a nightmare. They're a nightmare to deal with.

16:05They know. So good job on YouTube. That's part of the reason why TikTok wanted to have it under their control because they didn't want a bad experience with TikTok Shop. they wanted to make sure they can maintain a high level of quality for items that are bought through TikTok shop, particularly because it has their name on it. It's not fulfilled by Amazon. What I do think is interesting here is that Amazon is cool with this because if this is all actually taking place and becomes a more seamless experience within the YouTube app, definitely Amazon is getting more dollars from this, but people aren't then going to Amazon where I'm guessing if they do go to Amazon, there's some stat where they have a certain percentage of what they buy more but maybe because the fulfillments from amazon they get all of the notifications and receipts and product shipping information from amazon so maybe amazon figures they can capture it from there i think you're capturing it no matter what i do not think that this partnership is not without data capture let's be real that them's terms of service is like real big for sure but like amazon amazon has to see an added benefit here where obviously increased distribution outweighs whatever upsell opportunities they have from people going straight to the platform.

17:12We are going to just jump right into Uploads, Downloads. We need to talk about the Good Good Golf sort of controversy. So, you know, in case you missed this, so Good Good is one of YouTube's most well-known golf channels. They collabed with Callaway, which is a golf equipment company, to create and distribute this own sort of their own official driver. So the ad that was produced and that Callaway ostensibly approved to promote this driver featured Good Good founder, co-founder Garrett Clark, shoving former pro golfer influencer Alexis Maestowski, forgive me, to the ground and then leaning over and telling her to like, you know, violently basically never touch his driver.

17:50You know, I think on paper, anybody that looks at that is like, this seems like a terrible idea. You're like pushing a woman to the ground and you're like basically assaulting her with a golf club. There's also like ominous and menacing music behind it. It's not it's not a great ad. It's not. Now, evidently, this was supposed to be inspired by Obsession. Right. I did not see Obsession, but that was sort of the inspiration. And needless to say, this led to a tremendous amount of backlash and people were horrified. and um good good of course deleted it uh callaway dissolved their three-year deal uh pulled the good good merch uh you know good good even pulled out of some three million dollar pga sorry six million dollar pga tour sponsorship and the golf channel channel canceled or some show with that i mean it is some serious ramifications came of this and um you know uh the ceo said the company has now removed, quote unquote, removed people responsible for this disaster ad.

18:49He also said that, you know, he kind of lashed out at Callaway, said interesting that Callaway Golf asks us to make an ad, then approves it, then asks us to take the fall, then drops us in a coordinated media blitz and covers it up by giving millions of dollars away, thinking everybody will be OK with it. 30 for 39 will be legendary. I mean, this whole thing is just kind of bananas. And I think that like, I have no idea and I'm just speculating, but I feel like I wonder, you know, we talk a lot about creators having when they work with brands, brands have to trust creators, right? Like you have to trust them.

19:22They know their audience, all this sort of stuff. So along that vein, if you're Callaway and you're working with Good Good, who's like the biggest golf channel, whatever, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, listen, people are going to get this because it's all about obsession. And maybe they even watched obsession and they were like, Like see the through line. I mean, again, I've not seen it, not my jam. And so Callaway is like, I'm just doing what we've been doing, which is trusting creators. And then, but I think this is the type of stuff that then happens. Now, it seems very obvious in hindsight that this is like a terrible idea.

19:52I don't know. Is that what you, do you think that's what happened? Lauren, I think you're totally right in that this is the playbook that we've been preaching, that other people in the industry have been preaching, that brands who do this have been preaching about like trust creators. they know their audience, give them a very long leash with which to create content on because they get their constituents better than we do. And we're hiring them and working with them because we want to expand our scope and expand to new generations and new types of audiences. That obviously needs to be tempered.

20:22And I think this kind of thing is a little bit of a shock or a jolt to people and brands in this ecosystem to be like, okay, we got to make sure we pay closer attention to what's going on in this space. And I think also, like, it's not even about the fact that Callaway should be approving and getting into the weeds of the ad, but they can also look at that ad in the end and say, I'm not, I'm not, I can't, no, we're not, we're not going to, we don't approve this as a whole. Like, you still have agency in some regard. You can say, like, I don't want to do this. And I think, what's his name? The CEO was like, you guys approved it.

20:57Like, so I think there's, there's also like brands have to also like own, they do have to own that. Right. I do think though the pushback does feel a little bit outsized and over the top. And I think that's because maybe creators still are these newfangled types of entertainers in this ecosystem and this world. And they're thought of a little bit as black sheep still not in our world. And this kind of sentiment, I don't think applies to lots of people who are in this ecosystem, but it probably still does to some. It's like, what are we doing with these creators? Why aren't we working with these other stars?

21:30And if you look at this vertical that they're in, golf has at once fully embraced creators, but also been one of the sports that's pushed back on them a little bit. There have been a few outspoken individuals who are prominent in the golf world who have openly criticized creators. Brandel Chamblee, he's a golf channel analyst. He's been highly critical of internet stardom surrounding golf creators and live players who lean into YouTube. there's also this like golf is an older person sport traditionally so people who are baby boomers who are playing don't necessarily like all these newfangled kids on the courses and and what they're doing and introducing to the game well i think things are going to probably step back a little bit right now i think we're going to chill right it's going to chill for like a min so so i think while there have been people like bryson de chambeau who's a professional golfer who's very good who has fully embraced youtube and creators there's people on the other end of that too There is still a little bit of dissonance between this new creator class and this old guard of people who have been on courses for the last 40, 50 years.

22:31And I think what like it felt like golf was looking for an excuse here a little bit. Yeah, but I think this is bigger than golf. I think this is just like we're still such early. Relatively speaking, it's still very early from an industry perspective on how brands should be working with creators. And it went from one extreme in some ways, you know, we're we're not going to let creators do anything that, you know, we're going to dictate everything to now. this would be an example of the opposite extreme i would imagine is like i'm not again i'm not saying that callowee didn't approve this but they were like you get all creative control and yes okay great work like there is an in-between you still as a brand have to make sure that the ad speaks to your values and your whatever and even if i don't believe that there was a malevolent malevolent i can never say that word malevolent malevolent malevolent uh you know a negative they weren't trying to be like you should beat up on women it's still terrible and i'm not giving i don't like it at all they were they were obsession they were you know again didn't see it did they do that in obsession i have no idea right um maybe it wasn't like a man versus a woman it was a woman versus a woman a man versus a man would this have looked differently if it was like him beating up on a man 100 percent would have looked different maybe they were like we want women women should be equal i don't know who knows the decisions that happened but like everybody's moving so quickly which is the nature of like, you know, creators.

23:51It's the nature of our world. But sometimes you need to just take a deep breath, guys. And everybody needs to slow down. I think it's everybody's fault and nobody's fault. It's not nobody's fault. I think it's everybody's fault in this scenario. I don't think one is, I don't think anybody gets off the hook here. And hopefully they know better and they'll do better now. Okay, Josh, I think we did it. Lauren, I think that's it. I'll see you just trying to get that handicap down on the golf course. I mean, evidently they're going to be very empty right now. So I'll have a lot of time. If not there, next week on Creator Upload.

24:20Today's show is produced by Lauren Schnipper, Joshua Cohen, that's me, and Adam Conner. It's edited by Adam Conner too. Original music is by London Bridge. You can check him out on Instagram at London Bridge Music. Make sure you subscribe to Creator Upload right here on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts, as well as Spotify or wherever you're listening. While you're there, give us a rating and leave us a comment. If you want to talk, hit us up at info at creatorupload.com. If you like our show, recommend it to a friend. If you love it, just tell everyone. Thanks for listening to Creator Upload, and we will be back next week.