Hey👋,
I'm Giacomo

I went all in! 🔥

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I subscribed to ChatGPT-Pro for $200/month.

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Like someone way smarter than me once said:

"The risk of under-investing is dramatically greater than the risk of over-investing."

— Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc.

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And I believe this is exactly the case with #AI.

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I've been experimenting with AI tools for over two years, but only now do I feel something fundamentally shifting.

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The o1 model, released last autumn, is years ahead of GPT-4o.

It's so good that I kept hitting the usage limit with my Plus subscription.

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So, I subscribed to Claude to try their latest 3.5 Sonnet model.

Same issue, kept hitting the limit.

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Tried DeepSeek... good quality, when it works.

It’s often unavailable and lacks the polished UX of competitors. No custom GPTs, no Claude Projects etc.

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Then, I discovered that GPT-Pro unlocks an even more advanced model: o1-pro, with no usage limits. 🤯

As if that wasn’t enough, OpenAI dropped Deep Search last week, meant to be a complete game changer.

Add Sora and Operator (via VPN), and I was sold.

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First impressions: blown away.

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Deep Search + o1-pro is the real deal.

In minutes, it completed research tasks I had worked on for months.

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Sora seems far from the mind-blowing demos we saw months ago.

I’d say it’s comparable with Runway. But, for $200/month it's virtually unlimited.

Try replicating the same projects with Runway, and you'll easily spend the same amount or more. A single video project I worked on in September costed me around $70. So, all in all Sora is a good deal.

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Operator is also a bit underwhelming, but gives a clear idea of where Agents are heading.

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Not sure how long I’ll keep the subscription, but for now I’m all in.

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Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting some real-life use cases of GPT-Pro in the context of content and marketing.

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Stay tuned!

You make a lot of money, do you?

Sam Altman: "No"

"I'm paid enough for health insurance, I'm doing this because I love it."

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Scam Altman 😂

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Can't figure if this is all a joke or a computer simulation. Either way, it cannot be real.

#AI use case of the day: make charts out of images 📊

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Yesterday I posted some data about Spotify. All charts were made with ChatGPT.

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No Excel, no PowerPoint, no copy-pasting numbers.

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1. Asked GPT to find Spotify's latest financial report.

2. Took a screenshot of the Annual Financial Summary table

3. Uploaded screenshot in ChatGPT and asked to make a chart out of it.

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Sure, it took me a while to chat my way through the final result, it was worth it!

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Would have I been faster by just copy-pasting numbers into Excel?

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maybe... but what if I was dealing with a more complex table? I guess I would have given up.

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AI helps:

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-> Make existing tasks faster.

-> Unlock tasks you would have never done otherwise.

If you’re not planning to run audio ads in 2025, you should start now 👇

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Young Americans spend over half of their daily listening time with ad-supported digital audio, whether it's podcasts or music streaming. I guess similar picture in Europe.

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Spotify reigns supreme.

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With 32% of the global streaming market and rapidly growing monthly active users, it’s the king of audio.

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In 2024, ad-supported users grew faster than premium ones, now making up 62% of its total user base (vs 56% in 2020).

Advertising revenue are up 7% year-on-year.

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Until recently, Spotify relied heavily on direct ad sales. But now, they’re expanding their programmatic solutions in partnership with The Trade Desk.

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And this is where the opportunity for brands arises!

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Advertisers can now reach 425 million ad-supported users in a programmatic and efficient way.

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And here’s the best part:

recording audio ads is cheaper than ever with tools like ElevenLabs and its AI-generated voices.

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And if this wasn't enough,

there's a massive gap in the market 💡.

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Audio consumption is growing, but it’s still under-monetised.

‍WARC estimates that while audio accounts for 24.5% of all ad-supported media consumption in the US, it represents only 8.4% of ad spend. 🤯

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This means less competition, lower costs and more opportunities "to be heard".

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Audio-only social media (like Clubhouse) tried and failed.

Spotify took it all. It now owns everything audio, user-generated music, podcasts, even audiobooks.

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In this landscape, music becomes "content" and musicians become "creators", just like YouTubers and podcasters.

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While this might not be good news for musicians, it is great news for advertisers!

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Do you have experience with audio ads?

🚨 Elon Musk offers ~$100 billion to buy OpenAI!

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Sam Altman politely declines: "no, thank you"

"but we’ll buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want."

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Two kids taunting each other on a playground. 😂

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Elon lowballs OpenAI at less than half its estimated $260B valuation.

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Sam reminds him of his $44 billion overpriced Twitter acquisition, now worth less than 1/10.

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Elon was right all along…

We do live in a simulation!

NVIDIA’s stock crash last week was a glimpse of the next Black Swan.

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But what is a Black Swan? 👇

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In business, a Black Swan is a sudden unpredictable event with the power to disrupt an entire market, or even the global economy.

Think of the 2008 financial crisis, COVID or 9/11.

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People and markets try to predict and rationalise these events, but most Black Swans are just impossible to foresee. At least in the way they unfold.

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Only time will tell if last week’s drop was just a momentary panic or the first sign of something much bigger.

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In his later book, Nassim Taleb argues that people and companies can prepare for Black Swan events by developing Antifragility.

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Fragile things break under stress (like glass).

Resilient things survive stress but don’t improve (like steel).

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Antifragile things thrive under stress (like muscles that grow through exercise).

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The ability to iterate fast, change course and prepare plans B, C, D characterise Antifragile people and companies.

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💡Antifragility is the #1 skill for the next decade!

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Agreed?

Just by looking at demos of OpenAI Deep Search and Operator, I can totally see how AI Agents could kill Big 4 and MBBs.

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Unless...

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Big 4 and MBB will embrace AI agents to their advantage. Which they'll definitely do.

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But, they'll still get loads of competition from individual AI experts that will deliver as good jobs for 1/10 of the fees.

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For the first time in history, single-person companies might represent a serious threat to large businesses.

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Future is bright for individual creative entrepreneurs!

ChatGPT just killed Duolingo 🤯

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Instead of using language learning apps, here's what I do:

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I asked ChatGPT to send me 5 new German words every morning at 8am. It repeats 3 out of the 5 words from the day before, so they stick more.

The complexity of the words will increase every two weeks.

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Plus, it sends me 5 sentences to see how the words are used and even gives me a little exercise!

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What will GPT kill next?

Ai use case of the day:

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Connect a custom GPT to your blog.

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How I did it without writing a single line of code👇

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1. Ask ChatGPT-o1 for a detailed guide on how to connect to your blog’s API. (Webflow in my case).

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2. At some point in the guide, it will generate a Python script for you.

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3. Copy and paste this script into Google Colab, a simple tool to run Python code directly in your browser.

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4. Run the script to retrieve your blog content and ensure the data looks good.

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5. Paste the script back into ChatGPT-o1 and ask it to create an OpenAI schema for custom actions. GPT will understand what you mean.

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6. Create a custom GPT.

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7. Add a new “action” in your GPT settings.

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8. Enter your API authentication keys (the guide will explain how to get them).

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9. Paste the OpenAI schema.

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10. Test & publish your GPT!

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Now, your custom GPT is always synced with your blog. No more manual uploads every time you publish a new post.

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But why would you need this?

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✅ Ask your GPT to write new articles in your exact style.

✅ Get content analysis & recommendations. Even a roast!

✅ Have your GPT suggest the best next topic to write about.

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If you’re serious about custom GPTs, this will 10x your quality & speed.

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Look at me, I’m now better than 95% of bloggers out there, or so AI tells me. 😂

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Drop below your favourite AI marketing use case!

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It seems I'm a "very obscure person". Thanks Claude! 😐

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Here is what I'm doing to optimise my personal brand in the age of Ai 👇

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I try new chatbots and always ask the same question:

Who is Giacomo Iotti?

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-> Claude has no clue.

I appear to be "a very obscure person".

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-> DeepSeek admits I’m not widely known.

Fair enough. But it claims to be updated to October 2023? I expected better!

When I tried again with search enabled… it was “busy.” 😒

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-> Grok gets closer, but mixes my profile with another Giacomo Iotti.

Turns out, I’m a “multifaceted” individual. True, but I’ve never been a TV director, yet!

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-> ChatGPT finally recognises me!

It gives a solid summary and cites my personal website.

Interesting how it picks different articles each time. I’d love to know the logic behind that.

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-> Perplexity is by far the best.

Pulls a detailed professional background with sources like my website, LinkedIn, corporate pages, and more.

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Some takeaways:

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1. Claude, please add a search function!

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2. SEO in the Ai era is different.

Forget ranking, traffic and clicks, now it's all about Ai reputation.

‍Jes Scholz I think you would agree on this one :)

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3. Your Ai reputation evolves.

Over the past year, I’ve seen Ai responses shift as I updated my website, LinkedIn, and articles. Makes me wonder: how does Ai chooses what content to show each time?

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4. The importance of a personal brand.

It doesn't matter I have just few followers or little traffic to my website.

What matters is that Ai knows me!

And I’m proud of that, it means I’m on the right path.

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Next step?

Adding "Who is Giacomo Iotti?" as a FAQ to my About Page.

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Have you asked AI about your name yet?