Gossiping about Alix Earle’s Empire and 5 AI Trends You Need To Know About Now

0:00I actually don't think this should scare people. I think we are in this era where people hear about AI and all of the terrible things that are happening. When I read this and gave my POV, I got really excited about this. And the reality is AI is not going anywhere. Get in the sandbox and get your hands dirty and figure out what is going to work for you or your brand or your job. Because if you don't, it's the same thing as not being pop culturally relevant. You will be left behind. It's not an if, it's a when.

0:30in case you missed it you're allowed to be hot smart and rich so let's get into it

0:41one two three i got my clapper back katie sellers are you ready to get hot smart rich so ready let's get into it let's get into it so you're back on the mic i'm back i'm here i'm in LA like again which is fun after crazy travel weekend because we both got back after American Thanksgiving which tell us the truth in Canada does the world stop like it does in the US even though you guys don't celebrate I did not receive one email yeah from anyone in our business on anything for almost four days which I was like oh you know this is gonna be time I can I can catch up on work and then I was like you know what if everyone else is chilling I'm also gonna take a chill.

1:22Yeah. So it was a good break. What about you? Well, I feel like this year, American Thanksgiving Black Friday was very underwhelming, which was the first year I felt that in a very long time. You can speak more to it from your experience at Missouri, but like I didn't feel the need to shop like I usually do. I didn't feel the same discounts were being given the same spend. And interestingly, as the reports have come out, that's actually a consistent thing that across the US people felt except for what market do you think? Like country? No, tweens. Oh, tweens. Tweens have just taken over everything.

1:57But so they had crazy shopping numbers. And I feel like this is the theme of this year is two truths can be true at the same time. So even though I thought that Black Friday was totally underwhelming and I didn't feel the need to shop, they still hit the numbers out of the park. So Shopify reported that$6.2 billion in total sales were made on Friday, which is up 25 % from last year, even though I didn't feel like it was that amazing of a sale. And then interestingly, did you look at some of the top trending products that they reported? Yeah. I love when Harley posts these updates because I go and specifically look at the products and the brands.

2:32And I pretty much knew every brand name except for Goose Creek I had never heard of before. Yep. So there was Aloe with like a crew neck pullover, cozy earth, which we just found out about with sheets. Merit Beauty, which shocked me. Well, I think Whitney, which we'll maybe talk about later, did her collab with them immediately leading into Black Friday. So I think that could have been a big draw for them. Bass, Brooklinen, Illya Beauty, Caraway Home. These are all names that we know and love already. But I completely agree with you. I think the brands that played into the cultural moment leading into Black Friday actually did it the best.

3:06Whereas in years prior, the best was brands independently dropping new products that consumers didn't know about yet. I saw that on a lot of brands that we talk about on this podcast and I completely Washed over the marketing like it has already been done And so it just shows you how quickly pop culture is moving nowadays where it's like you need to think of new things So what's worked for the past five years? Does it necessarily work moving forward? Yeah, no the winners this year were cultural relevancy and hooked on to that And that's what propelled them versus to your point like a new product launch It kind of gets lost in the noise.

3:40Well and the other person I thought one incredibly well was goldfish. It was so cute. But it plays into, again, the big thing of this year, which was like bag charms and little boo-boos and this obsession with little mini things and oversized items. So I feel like we are moving into the era where because there is so much noise, it's either like the crazy outlandish, like how big can it get? Or it's almost toning it down and being like so tiny and micro. And that is where the obsession lies with Gen Z and millennial consumer. So for the people that are listening that don't know about Goldfish, they had not done the Macy's parade in almost a decade.

4:17And they had a float made very quick, actually, to the time of the parade, which usually these things take months. So the team at Macy's is working for 18 months ahead of time to prepare for the next parade. So they've planned next year's already. And only a few weeks ago, Goldfish came in and was like, we want to create the smallest float ever. It is 49 times smaller than the average display. And it measured only eight inches tall and 14 inches long. And look at the ripple effects that it created. It's the rule of absurdity. It was so absurd that it was so tiny, but that's the only thing people are talking about or care about.

4:55Yeah. But can we talk about what else is absurd? Yes. People's travel behavior. So I made a video probably three months ago that was like, Hey, can we just talk about plain etiquette? Like, Like, you cannot be playing your sound out loud on a plane, listening to a movie, getting up before people in the rows in front of you are. Like, where has the common sense of the decency come? And it has taken a whole new level because on the busiest day of the year, two days ago, U.S. officials rolled out a campaign called The Golden Age of Travel Starts With You. Oh, wow. And it is all about trying to change the mind shift of Gen Z and millennial travelers that have now come to airports in pajamas, are bringing like bags of stuff, are just like treating the airplane as if it's their home versus a place where you're sharing communal space.

5:49And it couldn't have come at a better time because travel is one of the categories that people are spending on. People want to get away. Did you see the study that booking.com just put I'm obsessed with it because I'm one of those women who would find it more attractive. so I just saw this study that 93 % of women say a partner who plans travel is attractive even more attractive than having a good body or a good paycheck even foreplay I mean it's definitely one of those things where it's like okay honey if you can orchestrate an entire experience from start to finish and I don't have to think about it and be in my feminine like it is very attractive yeah I have been very blessed in my personal relationship that my husband has always planned travel But it is interesting because I have this conversation a lot with ambitious women It's like i've been in other relationships where that wasn't the norm and really across our dynamic like Booking restaurant reservations like leading our family is what I would call it And I always would have these conversations behind closed doors, which was like pick your heart like When you are an ambitious woman, it's hard either way whether your husband is like the dominant alpha that's telling you what you're doing, because that's the role that we so often take during the workday.

7:06And so learning how to almost take that mask off and enter into that femininity is a skill that took me a very long time to learn. But then the other hard is like, you constantly are the one that's leading both at your job and both in your personal life. And so it's interesting to see this report come out that's showing that like 93 % of women want that. And the more interesting insight that I have is like, we are in 2026, my prediction is we are moving into an era where data matters more than anything. Human interaction matters more than anything. But I think if you think about product efficacy, right, and what people are looking for in categories like skincare or baby or beauty, they want clinical studies, they want product efficacy.

7:51It's not about the branding anymore. It's about what is the actual product. And so it's really easy for those companies to be marketing based on the clinical trials. It's a lot harder for tech companies to do that to prove product efficacy. So I actually loved the insight that booking.com took it upon themselves to run this study, then build an entire marketing campaign out of it and is now able to use this data to be able to influence real decisions. And I don't know if you've seen it on TikTok, but this guy books, this guy books, I'm obsessed with this guy. It is so good. And it's like one of the things that I think has actually cut through the noise and totally like booking.com is not sexy, but they made it.

8:33They've made it sexy. And like the real life data to your point, they've done a really good job of entering the race of like, what is real? And that's going to be so important heading into next year. There's so much fake online, so much created content that's just like schlop and they really cut through the noise. And honestly, like I could see it winning an award for like best marketing campaign of the year. Yeah. It was iconic. Did you send it to your husband? Well, I was in the midst of traveling to come here, so I haven't yet, but I will be sending it to my loving husband tonight. All the HSR girls that are listening to this, send this to the male in your life and let's see what happens.

9:13And I think just to bring it back to like for the entrepreneurs out there who are looking for a way to cut through the noise and to do something creative. Think about doing something like this. Like you can create your own viral moment, even if it's not put into your lap and like plan for things where you can plant seeds, do some background work and then make a moment out of it. And I think that's exactly what Booking.com did. Like they weren't sexy. And now everyone's talking about that. Literally everyone. They were on and I heard about it through CNBC. CNBC. And it was like, I think the head of PR that was going on and talking about the segment and it completely cut through all of the Thanksgiving Black Friday marketing.

9:50Yeah. Genius. Okay. We really need to talk about dancing with the stars. Oh yes. My favorite topic. Transparently. I'm not a huge reality TV person. I am. Yes. So we have two people sitting in the chair. One who sees it trickle down in short form content. So like, I love watching the dances on social media. I love following the vlogs, but like I'm not sitting down to an hour long dancing with the stars. It's two hours. Two hours. Sorry. I think it's important to talk about because it's such a long running show. And I think for the last two years, they have really had a completely different trajectory with product market fit as it relates to the crater economy that is growing.

10:30The brands. I actually saw something this morning. I wish I could take credit for this, but there was a prediction that we are about to see product integration into Dancing with the Stars because of how much of a chokehold they have on the American consumer, which I actually think is not far off. But I really want to talk about this season, the pipeline from Dancing with the Stars into reality show, into entrepreneur with the creator economy growing. First of all, from a diehard fan were you devastated about the outcome going into watching this season I didn't think I would be disappointed about anything but at the moment where it was 11 p.m eastern time and Alex Earl did not win I was actually deflated but then when you like think about it back from a business perspective it's like Robert Irwin has way more followers and part of it is a popularity contest so like you probably could have predicted that he was going to win but I really felt for Alex because I think she like gave it her all was the most improved.

11:34And I yeah, I was deflated. I think it'll be even more interesting to see what she does next. There's a lot of different ways that I think that she could take it. But one of which being I just saw in one of her videos, she is like allegedly saying I'm now going to be moving to LA like, this is where is going to catapult me to the next part of my career. And she's like, I didn't miss Miami when I was gone, which is kind of concerning to say because my entire life is there. But I think it goes to show sometimes getting out of your comfort zone and going and doing something new, whether you're a founder or you're the girl on the marketing team or whatever, mix up your environment and your life could present a whole new opportunity to you.

12:17And that's exactly what it's doing for her. Yeah. I also think just to pay credit to where it's due, like brooks nader was really the first person that we have seen take the show and make it pop culturally relevant yes and i think the really important insight that will lead us into what i'm very excited to discuss with you is like why business shows don't work is brooks nader goes on dancing with the stars like i didn't really know much about brooks nader before i knew she was a sports illustrated girl i had no idea that she was divorced it then catapulted her to her own reality TV show with her sisters, which just got announced season two.

12:51It's coming out. Mary's obviously been on the podcast. It's been one of like the most downloaded and enjoyed episodes. And well received. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I love what Mary's doing. I love that she's building a tech company and it's just like kind of has a big bow around all the things that we talk about, like content, commerce, community, culture. And the reason I bring that up is it's really interesting to think about this pipeline, right? You go on to an existing world. So you enter into Dancing with the Stars world. All the networks are then watching that to be like, who are the breakout stars?

13:25Who are the people that perform really well on reality TV that is hitting the mass American consumer? Now let's build a world around them versus taking the risk. And it's like an investment, right? It's such a de-risked thing to go and see who America already loves that I am predicting the next move for Alex Earl is a full reality show. Totally. Like, like hands down, hands down. It is going to be following her, her entrepreneurial journey, already taking what she's doing on the vlogs and making it something that is on a much bigger scale with a production like a Hulu or a Netflix behind her. And I'm so happy that Love Thy Nader just got renewed for season two.

14:03I have been thinking and something I talk a lot in behind closed doors with executives and people in the HSR ecosystem is like why Dancing with the Stars, Love Island, Love is Blind takes over pop culture and is almost like you can't ignore it. No. Everybody, every brand is playing into it. Like if you are not paying attention to this, you are dead in the water as a brand. You're missing an opportunity. You're not just missing an opportunity. You are not going to be relevant anymore and you ultimately could fizzle out as a brand. The best brands like Poppy this weekend I don't know if it was timed but they released their campaign with the Nader sisters that was the huge promo for 30 % off of poppy on Amazon this is a Pepsi owned brand they are going after these dancing with the star reality tv show at the moment that they are announcing a huge thing and it's got me thinking a lot about what I've been talking about behind closed doors which is like why doesn't the same thing happen for business shows why is shark tank the only show that has lived on for five, 10, I don't know how many, I think it's like 17 seasons now.

15:12Why is that the case? It's an interesting question. And actually, as we've been thinking about it and researching it, it actually makes so much sense. But as someone and women who are, and I think this is what you and I have gotten trapped into the mindset of like, oh, well, we're smart and we care about CAC and like the brand strategy deck and the pitch deck. And everyone would want to see like someone in business working on those things. And then you take a step back and you're like is the audience that's watching Dancing with the Stars or Love is Blind they really could care less they care about the personal emotional connection and the tension of personal relationships and that's why these shows like Dancing with the Stars, Love is Blind work and business shows struggle because they don't have the components of a story arc well and that's why I dissected Shark Tank to like almost putting it side by side with the love is blind and the dancing with the stars this past weekend like this is what i do for fun and it's interesting because even if you think about the stakes in shark tank they're actually not logical they're emotional so there's like the founders who are kind of positioned as the underdog and then you have the sharks who are billionaires and or millionaires who have built a very specific career so we're talking kendra scott mark cuban alice and ellsworth right yeah So they're known and there's a clear character.

16:35There's clear tension between the characters. There's a clear winner and a loser in every single segment. Yeah. And there's clear or there's the dynamic of I have multiple offers and then the power shifts back to the founder. What am I going to choose? Which goes back to this whole idea of what we talk about on the show. Power, money, like feminine. These are all characteristics and themes that are brought in through Shark Tank, which is why it has survived as long as it has. Whereas I feel bad saying this, but like, cause I actually know the winner of the show on brand. It, it just didn't hit.

17:09Like it just fell flat. And it was this huge hype around these two huge executives that were going to be bringing in all of these amazing people and brands and doing this marketing competition. And at the end of the day, those stakes still felt logical. And the character that that show was highlighting were the brands, which unless you've built that relationship with your consumer to feel like almost a personality, it's never going to have the tension and the stakes that a show like Shark Tank or Dancing with the Stars has. And so it's interesting to think about where the world is going in terms of education, content, community, because for us, we fundamentally believe the consumer is evolving past the like, I just want to be in, you know, that la-ti-da stage of like escapism.

17:58Escapism. They want to be educating themselves. They want to further who they are as a person financially, emotionally, personal development. But how do you actually do that when you know the formula of what works? And I think it comes down to knowing what format works for delivery of what topics, right? And that was something else I think we uncovered was business shows don't work on video because to get someone to sit through and watch a 45 minute episode of something takes a lot of work. And when you don't have any of the hooks or the emotional connection, it's just like, even I'm who, you know, not to toot my own horn, but like am accomplished work in the business world.

18:37I choose to sit down and watch dancing with the stars over on brand. And that says a lot about the human brain and what it takes for me to actually relax. If I want to listen to educational content, like hot, smart, Rich, it's a podcast. And I can listen to it on the go. I can pause and start. I get sound bites. And I think it's the evolution of the world we're in is really thinking about delivery of what topics in what format is going to work for the people who want to consume it. Well, and how can you touch pop culture quickly in a way that if your brand isn't resonating as a personality, how can you work with those people that are?

19:15And it's like, Poppy comes up time and time again for us as someone who keeps doing it right. Yeah. And it's interesting because like it does make sense why Allison is going down the shark tank route and not necessarily trying to go down the route that like Ashley Graham or Emma Gree did with a business show that didn't end up actually meeting the mainstream. Yeah. I kind of think that leads into these predictions that Greg Eisenberg. Yeah. So for those of you that don't know Greg Eisenberg, he is a hilarious B2B creator in a non-hilarious way. One of my faves You really have to understand his humor.

19:47But so this past weekend, he put out 48 predictions of AI for 2026. Some of them are relevant for HSR. Some of them are not. So how we're going to do this segment is Katie is going to read out the predictions that we identified. I think there's like eight or nine that are the most relevant for HSR. And then I am going to give the HSR POV on them. I actually don't think this should scare people. I think we are in this era where people hear about AI and like all of the terrible things that are happening. I actually think when I read this and gave my POV, I got really excited about this and where I think this is all going.

20:22So let's start with the first one. And the reality is AI is not going anywhere. So this is like, get in the sandbox and get your hands dirty and figure out what is going to work for you or your brand or your job. Because if you don't, it's the same thing as not being pop culturally relevant. You will be left behind. It's not an if, it's a when. so for our hsr angels the first prediction the great resignation yields to the great not hiring so my thesis on this is that this is already happening and what that will actually turn into is gen z will become entrepreneurial by force not by inspiration it's not like they're going to every single person in gen z is going to want to be an entrepreneur but it is going to happen because there aren't the same job opportunities that happened for us when we graduated, they are going to have to start their own companies.

21:14And so I think there will be a lot more micro solo entrepreneurs that are then leveraging AI to actually run their business. Okay. So the next, the keyboard starts becoming seen as an old niche input device. Eventually, yes. But there is no way that we are getting rid of your computer, your iPad, and your phone this year. And interestingly, I just got my first pair of Ray-Ban metaglasses. So when I was at the WhatsApp office, I actually like did a whole tour of the new ones that you can't even get yet. And yes, people are starting to implement these devices into their everyday life, but we are not in 2026 going to see the keyboard become obsolete.

21:50The one thing that I do actually think will happen though, is that writing thank you notes and physical communication between people will actually become much more important. So like people will bring a notebook to meetings and then their AI glasses will translate that into a note for them where like they aren't being distracted on their computer. They're able to actually be more in the meeting and use the technology to further how they can stay engaged without having to do it themselves. Yeah, I can definitely tell for me, I am using my keyboard less, but more intentionally for things that really matter.

22:26So the AI tools that join my meetings or my use of voice notes and dictation has like gone through the roof, which has actually been transformative for the way that I work. So I agree. It's not this year, but I can see it's starting to reduce and becoming more impactful in certain ways. Yeah. Okay. Next one, which is maybe about like Gen Z having to be more entrepreneurial, but is that micro companies will explode in volume and weirdness. And I love the word weirdness. Well, I think to further that one, it's that there's going to be these tiny online tribes that become the real career path is Greg's prediction.

23:05My rebuttal to this is like tastemakers will become so much more important. And I think now with everyone having the ability to share their ideas, I don't think you can teach taste. And so I think that yes, like it will be an impact to not only the companies that are built, but also the creators that actually come to the surface in 2026. It'll be based on taste, not necessarily volume of things that you're producing because everyone will be able to produce so much content. It will be really based, I think, even less on speed, but more on POV. And how people create things that allow you to feel genuinely fulfilled in your life and people will resonate with those types of creators.

23:46Yeah. Okay, next. And I actually like really think about this as a parent of a young child. Personalized education unbundles the university or just the education system in general. I could not agree with this more. I think even looking back where I am, like I wish that I wasn't pushed into having to go to college at a specific time and a specific curriculum. Like I just didn't take advantage of it to the way that I think I could have. And it was really interesting at a dinner I was at in Miami this past weekend. There was a couple at the dinner that had a huge profile piece about them in the New York Times.

24:18And they called the creator, the Tony Robbins of influencing because they have started to build an influencer school to learn how to be an influencer. And interestingly, the reporter asked to bring on a Stanford educator that teaches social media, has like under 2000 followers and kind of gave a like critic of what they're doing and kind of saying like, oh, well, they don't have a Stanford degree and they're not actually going to school and taking a curriculum. And the two founders at the table of this new generation of school was like, that's just so old school. Like, I don't even know if our kids in the future will finish high school based on where education is going.

24:54So I completely agree with this. I think people are learning through AI much better than they would even being in a classroom of a thousand people at a university campus. Well, think about a college degree takes four years to complete. Think about how fast things are evolving in four years. You could start a program and at the end of four years, a job that you think you might have could no longer exist or a completely different field has popped up. And so I like I really think about it for my son where I'm like, does even a classroom model of grade one to grade 12 even work anymore? Like I just don't know.

25:28And it'll be really fascinating to see homeschooling homeschooling. Okay, next one human in the loop becomes a luxury feature. Yeah, speak to a human interestingly will become the new luxury. I don't know about you. But when I'm calling customer service, and I can't speak to a human, it is my biggest frustration it will become a class tiered system like airplanes are with based on what zone you are in is when you board how much luggage you're able to bring on that will become in my opinions with with greg that will become the new service-based class system and i want to give props actually to meta i had to i launched a support ticket recently and the very first step after a live chat of what was your issue was immediately someone called me oh wow a real person and her name on the chat was, hi, my name is Atlas.

26:18I'm going to give you a call. And in that moment, I was like, oh, Atlas, I must be talking to AI and AI is going to call me, which I thought was insane. And then a woman actually called me and she was like, no, my name is actually just Atlas. But I was like, I really wasn't sure how the interaction was. They told you that that's probably still AI. But it might have been AI, but it made it feel like a very personal experience. experience and I left it feeling wow meta called me and I spoke to a human so yeah okay next the death of the average influencer it's gonna resemble what's happening with the k-shaped economy currently there's like no more middle class completely so I think 2026 will leave two classes of influencers there's like the iconic and then there's almost like the fully automated influencer which just to skip ahead a little bit there is a prediction down here that we're going going to see the rise of the authentic influencer who can prove that they're human so Greg's prediction was like we'll actually switch from blue check marks to human generated badges so that people can actually tell what is AI and what is human and so I I think the same thing will be true with the influencer and creator landscape in the future there will be the influencers and creators that are real and human and those will be the top one percent the charismatic the people that build community that have legacy brands that are being built underneath them the middle class of influencer will die off.

27:44And then there will be like fully not human generated influencers, like AI generated influencers. And the ones who will win will be the ones who have charisma and personality and can engage people in person. Right. Which brings me to Greg's next point, which is trust premium explodes. So another badge that I think will actually come in not only with creators, but also in different products and brands will be no AI touch this. So you'll be able to actually share with your audience when you're leveraging AI and when you're not. And the human imperfection. And someone said this to me that's really resonated where they were like, your little isms, Maggie isms, they called them, the dyslexia, the like kind of stumbling over your words sometimes.