How to Use AI to Grow Your Business on Social Media in 2026

0:00AI is much more like electricity or like a computer or like the internet that none of them will be in a place in five years where they're not interacting with it. Most of them are probably interacting with it today. My five-year out track is very far out just to be kind about it. But like within a year or two, everyone's pretty much interacting with AI pretty significantly. Whether it's Claude or Perplexity or Gemini or OpenAI, they're simple things. I'll do it right now. I'll just go to, I'll pick up ChatGPT because actually it's not the hot one right now. Hey, so I'm a young dog trainer and I want to make social media content that is going to over-index over the last six months.

0:39I know you're not Manus, which is obviously Facebook's AI, but you, ChatGPT, what do you think are three or four pillars of content I could be making that will help me stand out from everybody else? Is there anything over-indexing? Should I be thinking images? Should I be thinking pictures? What about platforms? should I be doing TikTok? Is it Instagram? Or maybe there's an opportunity to break out on threads or Facebook Blue or YouTube Shorts where there's no one else or not as many people focus because everyone's so over focused on Instagram or TikTok. Also, I'm fairly new and I'm competing with dog trainers that have 20 years word of mouth.

1:15Any topics I should be touching on? Is there any trends right now? Is that an opportunity for me to speak on anything that might be different about my dog walking? Where should I go? This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience. Gary, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, brother. We'll get to a few different topics, but everybody I know, so I've been running this show for about six months. I only do an episode once a week and the audience is dog trainers, right? And I bring on seasoned vets and obviously do a good job. If you're a dog trainer, you know, train the dog to a high standard and make sure that the customer's happy word of mouth takes over.

1:56But there's this younger community has come in. They started during COVID, maybe a little bit before, and they're thinking, how do I use AI for my social media strategy? And I saw you gave a keynote a few weeks ago. So if you're a dog trainer, how are you using AI to, you know, without having like AI slop as the captions, without having, you know, those graphics that are clearly made by AI, how are you using AI to implement a social media strategy or your business? There's a lot of ways to go about it. I think first and foremost, everybody in this community understanding that AI is much more like electricity or like a computer or like the internet, that none of them will be in a place in five years where they're not interacting with it.

2:42Most of them are probably interacting with it today. And my five-year out track is very far out just to be kind about it. But within a year or two, everyone's pretty much interacting with AI pretty significantly you know to me whether it's Claude or Perplexity or Gemini or OpenAI they're simple things like I'll do it right now I'll just go to, I'll pick OpenChatGPT because actually it's not the hot one right now so I'll go there hey so I'm a young dog trainer and I want to make social media content that is going to over index over the last six months I know you're not Manus which is you know obviously Facebook's AI but you chat GPT what do you think are three or four pillars of content I could be making that will help me stand out from everybody else is there anything over indexing should I be thinking images should I be thinking pictures what about platforms should I be doing TikTok is it Instagram or maybe there's an opportunity to break out on threads or Facebook blue or YouTube shorts where there's no one else or not as many people focus because everyone's so over-focused on Instagram or TikTok.

3:51Also, I'm fairly new and I'm competing with dog trainers that have 20 years word of mouth. Any topics I should be touching on? My enthusiasm, my contemporaneous. And is there any trends right now with people that are living in a hybrid world, right? Where people are working at home but also in the office. Is that an opportunity for me to speak on anything that might be different about my dog walking? And then again, is there any, you know, I like music. Should I talk about singing to the dogs? Where should I go? Now, that's a complex prompt, what I just did. And I think, first of all, a lot of people are searching or using AI more like search.

4:32And they're like, how do I make content if I'm a dog walker? Versus if you look at what I'm gonna get right now, if anybody's watching or if you're listening, this is a very detailed answer I'm getting with more depth because I went detailed with the prompt. So I didn't even get into how to make content with it using Nano Banana or using other things of that nature. I'm just going to even thinking, you know. And so it goes into a lot of stuff. Myth busting, hot takes, an entertainment layer, platforms. It talks about TikTok and shorts. I personally like AI quite a bit as a thinking partner in a jam session, ideation.

5:13and then of course making it like there's a million things you know runway um you know uh nano like there's a million mid-journey there's so many ways to make content with ai and again if you don't know it like here we go like okay actually let me use the voice so everyone can hear it what are your thoughts on ai answering the phone for people are responding to messages so that's been like the first use. Real quick, real quick. What four platforms should I use to make videos or pictures for my content in my dog training AI? Absolutely. I'd focus on these four. First, TikTok. It's still the king for discovery and short form video.

5:53Second, YouTube shorts. Great for search and longer term growth. Third, Instagram reels. Super useful for no worries at all. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't mean what platforms to post on. I mean I want AI to make the content. What apps should I be using to make the content? Ah, got it. For AI-assisted content creation, I'd say first, check out Runway ML. Super versatile for video editing and AI effects. Second, try Canvas Magic Media. Great for AI-generated visuals and videos. Third, Dolly or Midjourney if you want AI to generate unique images. And fourth, Descript if you want to edit videos with AI, like Cut.

6:28So, you know, again, for everybody who's watching, if you're not as tech-savvy or marketing-savvy, let's say all the, like you notice that it referenced two apps that I just referenced two minutes ago. You have the information at your fingertips. AI teaching you how to use AI is one of my most favorite meta things that's going on in the world right now. It just takes effort, curiosity, discipline. How do I feel about AI using, look, look, AI replying to someone to schedule or do something, how much different than that is it than going to someone's website or social media to get information. As long as someone's not parading, as long as people are authentic, you know, if you're using AI to answer and maybe even you set your AI to say, reminder, this is just information, this is not me texting you back.

7:15If you're parading as, oh yeah, I did that, but that authenticity doesn't work, but I think we'll be used to AI answering our questions from a person similar to us going to that person's social media or website for information. Would it turn you off if you called into a business? You know, I've known that dog trainers typically work, you know, alone. It's that kind of business. Very fragmented solopreneurs where the dog trainers, you know, they're doing sales, marketing, their execution, everything. And because the dog trainers with the dog, sometimes they can't answer the phone. Sometimes they can't get back the messages incredibly quickly.

7:51So what I've been getting calls about is kind of like these AI virtual agents, right? I'll answer the phone for you. I'll write back with a text message. Would that turn you off as a customer? Or would you go into that? I would say me personally would not turn me off. I know it would turn off a lot of people right now. I would recommend to anyone who wants to do it to be authentic with the person on the other side that this is my AI for information. If you need something from me, like it's almost like I would add in there, PS, this is my AI for information. If you need something from me, please email me.

8:25You know, I believe it is an authenticity game versus an or game. It's gonna be and. There is no world going forward where it's not a mix of AI and human. I think for the next five years while the world gets accustomed to that, being overly authentic with the person on the other side is probably a good idea. Yeah, so guys, there's a gentleman that you should follow. His name's Caleb Ralston. So he worked for Gary. And so he'll post the video on Instagram and then he'll say like comment and I'm sure you guys have seen this with many chat, you know, comment serial and we'll send over the guy. And when someone comments serial, for example, it says, thank you, my little robot will send you a link.

9:06And that's a way to be authentic because everyone sees that that is a robotic response. There was a lot of people that told me email was not authentic. In the 90s? That's right. And then you just executed on it, built Wine Library, and kind of like where like I hear you but I'm going to do it in as authentic a way as I can? Yeah. And again, for anybody who just heard that and I went with dramatic pause for purpose, like that sounds insane to any of you. But there was a world pre-email and I lived in it. And if you didn't call someone or if you didn't talk to them in person and if you didn't write a letter, my argument was why would email be less authentic than a letter?

9:48Hey everybody, I hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast. It'll make my mom super happy. And so people get used to things. Now, I think AI is different than that. I get that. But I don't think it's different enough. And it goes back to, do you understand what's happening? And so, yeah, I mean, I think as long as you're up front with your audience, it's very hard to lose. People can opt in and opt out. Today, 50 % of people might say, well, then I'm not gonna even interact with you because I don't want the AI.

10:21That number will be 1 % in 10 years. Can I, I'm going to summarize your thesis really quickly. And then I'd love for you to expand on it. So guys, if you go back, Gary's first book was Thank You Economy. Crush It, Crush It. Crush It, then Thank You Economy. That's right. So he gets messages all the time about how people who were early to read Crush It and would create content based on the Smurfs, the things that they truly love, they would be able to build five six seven and eight figure businesses on top of that by doing things that they truly love this was early 2000s now gary has made a really interesting post it's like i think i'm away from your phone in real life is going to be the next trend so we have this like attention that always shifts like kind of like a pendulum and that was like guys like one of the best things I do, Gary, is my dogs are trained to be off-leash, and I invite different families with their kids for just a day out in nature.

11:26Yeah, it's epic.

11:30It's so freeing. They leave their phone in the car. Yeah, it's epic. Give me your thesis on what you're seeing, attention, social media, that kind of economy, so to speak. Yeah, I kind of think of it as a barbell. That's where my head's at right now. The extreme AI and the extreme analog are both about to win. And the middle is not where you want to be. So, you know, for everyone here in this community, I'm sure this will land well. I believe, you know, dog walking. I believe running clubs. I believe hiking. I believe people will pay for things that used to be wildly free, right? People will pay to hang out with 10 other people in a park with their dogs just because we've become so digital, so scroll, so technology.

12:20And yeah, I mean, I think life is pendulums. And I don't love over-digitalization. I love talking about things that are opportunities for people if they want to participate. It is very clear to me, live sports, going to restaurants, as I think you probably know, I have a restaurant group these days and one of the restaurants I keep pitching to my partners because I'm really more chairman than active driver is we need to open a restaurant that requires people to put their phone in a locker and then they go to group tables. I just believe it. I think we're yearning for it. I think we're in the beginning of the trend of extreme analog.

12:59You see it with like records and like non-smartphones, like literally 14 year olds are buying non-smartphones. So, you know, a lot of these 14 year olds in Gen Alpha watched their Gen Z siblings, you know even though I think we've overly demonized technology for our insecurities and our mental health issues and I think there's a little bit more of entitlement and lack of other modern parenting and there's just a lot of other things going on but notwithstanding you know much like sugar much like alcohol much like any bad behavior it's easy to blame it and try to ban it when in reality it's a different conversation that being said you know it's very clear to me that everyone on this call is about to go into a really fun era where I'm aware that you know many will walk one dog or multiple dogs your analog but your customers not and I get really excited like if I was in this business and I had the brain I have the strategy I have I would definitely go into hey I'm going to charge you 50 % more to walk your dog?

14:10Obviously, it's all geographical, but what is the ranges for people that they get paid for walking dogs? What are you seeing out there? You're just talking pure dog walking like I'm saving you time? $30 to$50 per half hour to hour, right in that range. Right, and I assume that that's probably in upper middle class, middle class. Obviously, lower income, that's not going to happen, or maybe it is. I don't know, but I assume in Beverly Hills it's more expensive to dog walk than in Des Moines, Iowa, right? So to me, especially in those upper middle class and wealthy areas, you go from 75 bucks, 50 bucks to 100 bucks but what you tell the person is, but now you're in my club and we get together with other people in the club Thursdays in, let's just use New York, Thursdays in Central Park at this location every night, seven to nine, dogs get to play, you get to meet no before me saying you get to pay me double to meet people in real life you're like what are you talking it's kind of like bottled water when bottled water was invented bro people were like what are you talking about it's free and now we know right what kind of industry it is i think today some people just heard me and say wait a minute i'm gonna charge 100 bucks instead of 50 so that people can meet us for the other dogs i run on thursdays from 7 to 9 p.m in the park what are you talking about and i'm going to answer i'm talking about the future and so i think there's a lot of rise of analog coming and i'm pretty excited about it because i think it will be very healthy for a lot of people um i ironically am not in need of that as a customer like i get my i don't get digitaled out or fatigued by doom scrolling i don't get insecure anxious with the over digitalization but i'm a focus group of one i know for hundreds of millions of people this is going to work.

16:05I'll tell you who my demo is. So I'm here in South Florida and what you kind of described, like I would say, this is a little bit of a central park dog park where the drop-offs every day are eight to 9am and the mom, so most of my clients are 40 to six year old moms with their dogs, right? And they dropped their dog off for the day, but they might hover and hang out and, you know, catch you up on like, Hey, my son just made the varsity baseball team. Or look at how big my dog is. Or oh my god, is this like they might have seen on social media everyone loves this big 100 pound dog named Dave. So they ask me is Dave there so that they can come out of the car and meet him.

16:43Kind of like the brody, the dude. So it's become this hey I saw on your social media Dave is there every Tuesday can I drop my dog off on a Tuesday and play with Dave for more? Sounds like big Dave has become the hero. Dave is a hero. But that's what you talking about right? I am talking about that and then it's because I believe the next step is who's Big Dave's owner and can I have a coffee with Big Dave's owner for 15 like we're sensitive we need community now ironically early digital was bringing us community you know what well what intoxicated me about social in 06 was remember there is no social so I know because you know me a little bit.

17:27I know that there's unlimited kids that were like introverted, outcast, picked on and now they're finding their friends in what is now Fortnite but at the time it was like Doom or you know. Like the nerds found their friends and then next level, Gen Pop found new friends. Bro, you have no idea what Twitter was 2006, 7, 8, 9. It was a nirvana, like hippies. like everyone's friends like you would not know if you weren't there how it was the other side of the pillow anybody that showed up love it didn't matter if you like never had a friend in your life like everybody in 2007 and 8 was like oh my god this gave me a community and you would use the digital to meet in real life 20 years later you stayed in digital you didn't go to real life as much and a lot more anger depression negativity politics it changed the dynamic but my original love of social was what i love about now the analog emergence but again i do think that digital is a gateway for it like you said oh there's big dave in my instagram feed let me go see andrew oh that becomes friends with big dave oh that becomes you have something called the dog supper club and on top of your dog business you have a food business where the owners of your dogs are now in an exclusive club that get together for dinner once a month and you're making revenue off of that and then you get sponsorship and it's coming from a good place.

19:09Here's a quick comment from, this is a good trainer, his name is Matt, so he was watching you in 2020 when you had Tea with Gary V and it inspired him to start posting his content and I want to talk to you about this. It's not going to be an easy question, but I'm going to give you the metaphor in human terms so you understand. So you always talk about participation trophies, right? And not letting kids win in basketball and karate, making them work for results because that little bit of stress, that little bit of discomfort, that sadness. Dad won't let me win. I remember in soccer, I think my dad was 18 years old.

19:44And I was a better player than him, but one-on-one was his game. And really, it killed me. I cried. Well, it's that Soviet energy.

19:55so good trainers yes go their work but then here's what happens inevitably the dog misbehaves the trainer has to reprimand them and the internet is up in arms because they're like you can't reprimand dogs we're in 2026 you have to throw food at the dog and tell it it's a good boy help us navigate that good trainers who document their work get negativity online I think history will smile on them if they have good intent. You know, I mean, I don't know what else to tell you. Like, you know this about me and you've now, you're older now. You've lived life. Yeah, made mistakes. We all do. We all do.

20:38You look great, by the way. You look good. You look healthy and good. You look good. That Florida's doing good by you. I think it's kind of cool to be misunderstood when you're coming from a good place to only be revered or respected 10 years later. What would I tell all the trainers that are actually doing the right thing? And I'm undereducated. I tend not to judge, as you know, period, because I think I'm fascinated by people's ability to judge shit they don't know. Nonetheless, I would tell the trainers that know what they're doing that just because we're in an era where keyboard warriors might deploy shame or judgment on you from a place of non-knowledge.

21:22I promise you in the end, you will win that game if you even desire being understood or outside validation. I think one of the things that's made me very dangerous, and I use it as a slang term for like good, is I don't overly desire to be fully understood or fully appreciated or needing the validation. I'm very insular and I need to do the thing I need to do and I'll take the pros and the cons with the hope that in the end it will be appreciated because I know where my framework comes from. And so I will say to every incredibly well-intended, warm-hearted, tremendously talented, educated, and skilled and experienced trainer, being misunderstood because something's taken out of context by the gen pop is obviously not fun and you worry does it hurt your business and something goes viral, I get it.

22:14but I promise you, you will win in the end if it's true. So if you guys don't know, Gary's building, let's call it a Pokemon-esque brand called Veef Brands. I think, there you go. To, I mean, it was like a grateful gorilla, you know, elegant elephant. It was bringing these, you know, I guess, personality traits that Gary had, that he saw winners have, into the mainstream, right? So if you have kids, check out VFriends. It's at your local card store. And card stores are probably left and right. This is one of my favorites. Self-aware hair. So one of the questions that someone had was, Gary's big on live selling.

22:57So if you guys don't remember, in the 90s, there was a QVC, right? And then it faded away into the 2000s. But in many ways, Bro, by the way, I'm sorry to interrupt. It's not. You got like, watch this. This is going to blow you away just for fun. Sure. How much revenue does QVC and Home Shopping Network do in 2024 or 2025? I miss Emeril Lagasse. Me too. Let's see what's going on here. Is it working? Oh. Do you know how much revenue QVC and Home Shopping Network did in 2025? In 2025, QVC Group, which owns both QVC and Home Shopping Network, reported$9.23 billion in total revenue, down about 8 % year - 9.2 billion.

23:45But it's shifting. You would agree. Oh, by the way, you heard the last part, down 8%. I mean, why do you think I'm yelling at everyone here? Sell your dog leashes, go make dog food. Like, live, I mean, I, for you, because I know you enough, if you, and you may not want to do this, but if anyone here wants to get into the physical product making, which is very hard, the reason so many of you have not done it is you've seen others try bigger names and you fail. but you can start nice and slow if you've got a chewy toy idea a dog collar even if you want to go all the way to the extreme and make dog food which I think is very challenging I will say that live shopping today is where social media was when I wrote Crush It!

24:26in 2006 which it's big already but it's gonna get so big and I could not push it more Other than products is there a way to just do a show on there? Yeah, it's coming I'm sorry to interrupt you if you go on TikTok because on TikTok they bring you audience so it shows up on people's For You page. I do believe in something called commerce tainment where you're just filming information but I would say I think we will get into a place where you will book services through live shopping not just selling physical product. We're not really all the way there yet but I'm very bullish it. I want to respect your time so guys this is a 30 minute episode I want to end on this.

25:11Please. Your family got a dog named Rumi. Yes. I know you're a people person. It's okay. You love people. Gary's giving some keynotes. I love everyone here. I wish you guys in here as much as you love dogs. I know. I always get razzed on this. I really still stand on that business. If the world loved each other the way we all default and love these wonderful animals, the world would be a better place. We all default to loving the dog. we do not default to loving the human because humans can hurt us. I get that. But yes, to answer your question I have a feeling you're going to ask. You know, Mona makes fun of me.

25:50I love Rumi like weird. There's certain things I do. I've always done this since I was a kid. If I really love something I'll bite my tongue. I'll do this. This is like an interesting tell in my life. It doesn't happen in business so most of even my hardest core fans have maybe never seen it. Maybe it showed up in a DailyVee somewhere and people didn't understand it. I do it to my niece. I know Mona has pointed that out. I do it to her. I do it to other, my kids, of course. But I've done it to Rumi, and Mona's like, there it is. What is it that you love about her? Because you didn't grow up with dogs.

26:24I actually did. I don't talk about this a lot. We had a dog named Tyson, a German Shepherd, but then he bit the plumber's midsection, and that kind of changed. I had a dog named Rex. We grew up weird with dogs. My father likes dogs. My mother and I and my siblings, but really my mother and I were scared of them. And my dad was never home. So it was a real, I mean, I don't even want to get into it. I took care of them and I had to like clean up the poop and it was like inside, there was a lot going on there. It wasn't really outside dog life. Nonetheless, my thing with dogs was me making an extreme statement to try to talk about we need more love in human life.

27:03Much less about me like hating dogs other than as a child, I did grow up being scared of dogs because my mom was scared of them and I just thought every dog was going to bite me on impact. So it's been fun to watch, you know, my brother got a dog, his kids, like, it's been fun to watch, my sister has, like, it's fun to watch kids not be scared by default because I had a very different experience. But I think, you know, listen, I don't have to sit here and pontificate of why people love dogs, right? Like, or animals. They, you know, and again, I apologize, but I'm gonna use it as a platform for this.

27:36I actually believe most people by default love each other too. I believe that the media has done a very effective job to talk about the 1 % of us that are bad or hurting and then being forced to do bad things. And we all love dogs because there's unconditional love but I will also say we all love dogs because they can't talk back. I have a funny feeling if every dog on earth was able to talk back to their owners and point out their owner's insecurities and shortcomings and things they don't like that their owner does, that this miraculous default that we just love them blindly would also change and would look more similar to the way we feel about people.

28:17I'll tell you, working with dogs has made me realize how creative and imaginative humans are because a human can take something that a dog does and clearly that's not what it's doing because I see this and they just make up this whole narrative. dogs protect dogs probably scared this whole story I'm like are you sure that that's accurate right because you're deeper you're knowledgeable you have context and you know you know this I know very little and compared to every brilliant person on this show but I know we as humans affirm the wrong things in our dogs and and I know that through the lens of what we're doing as parents and so that's really cool I'm really happy you found yourself in this world it's really I think you know I mean this with every ounce of my soul it's really really nice to see you flourishing in this arena I'm really proud of you I'm happy for you I love seeing some of the comments I hope people enjoy the show I hope this brings value to people and I wish everyone well I appreciate it I'll let you go with this my dad and my sister also were scared of dogs my dad was a delivery driver and he knocked on the door they opened the door and he was on the receiving end he the german shepherd bit his midsection man i hope it wasn't your dad that had some interest before we agreed so i had all this cash in my pocket so it protected me what a great story i appreciate it i know you have all these things that you're working on to take 30 minutes out of your day to share your knowledge, your vibe, your personality, and your story with us.

30:01It means the world. So thank you so much. Happy to do it. Hey everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.