So if you've been watching this channel for a long time, you'll remember this. How 2023? The problem is, AI in today's day and age, 2026, is largely misunderstood. And that's the reason why a lot of voice actors are frightened and confused by it. And today, we've got to talk about it. So this all started with a thumbnail. I needed something eye-catchy for a YouTube video I was working on. And so I tested an AI image generation tool. At this point, I don't even remember which one, but it was probably Dolly, which by then I think had been integrated into ChatGPT. Regardless, a couple days later, I get a comment on that video. Based on the fact that you used an AI image, I did not watch the video. Be better. Okay, this person clearly had an issue, presumably with the fact that I used AI rather than hiring a human graphic designer. But here's the thing, I've never paid a graphic designer. for a YouTube thumbnail in my entire life. I already have those skills. At that point, my options were A, spend a half an hour in Photoshop, or B, spend a few seconds with an AI image generation tool and be done with it all. So let's cut the crap. This debate is not about ethics at its core. It's about a pervasive misunderstanding. AI is not one entity, and if you're treating it like some evil corporate villain, then you're completely missing out. on how it's changing the game for voice actors, freelancers, solopreneurs, and small businesses. Before we get into it, let's give you our free resource, our free source of the week. It's the Voice Actor's Guide to Positioning Against AI. Stand out, stay booked, and be the obvious choice in a world of synthetic voices. Again, it's a free download, and the link is in the show notes and description. Expose yourself to any media these days, much less inside the voiceover industry, and you'll hear the same chorus, AI is coming for our jobs! But here's what nobody seems to get. AI is not a product. It's not a single company. It's not even a single capability. Saying AI is unethical is like saying software is unethical. Was Excel evil when it- replaced your accountant's manual ledgers, are DAWs immoral because they eliminate tape? AI is just a category of tools. And unless you get that, we can't even begin to have a real, meaningful, nuanced conversation about how or if AI will impact your creative business. So to understand what AI means for you as a voice actor, you've got to see the big picture, right? There are actually four main subcategories of AI tools. Number one, generative AI, which is essentially used for content creation. This is AI that makes stuff, right? Like the thumbnail that I mentioned at the top. It can generate text like blogs or emails or yeah, even audition scripts, video snippets, audio snippets, et cetera. Number two is Assistive AI, which helps you with productivity. These are your time savers, your sanity restores. So when Grammarly flags your email typos or your editing tool auto aligns your dialogue or your AI research assistant compiles lists of prospects for you. Those are examples of Assistive AI. Number three, Analytical AI, which we use for data and insights. These are the number crunchers and they usually run in the background. Things like ad performance reports, audience insights, automated recommendations from your CRM. And finally, the one that we're all familiar with, synthetic AI. This is the sort of scary future stuff, right? Synthetic voices, AI cloning, text to speech narrators. And I get it. Most voice actors are terrified of number four, but the problem is that fear dictates how you feel about numbers one, two, and three. That is a recipe for stagnation. So let's cut to the chase. The anxiety that most voice actors feel isn't about AI grammar checkers or AI thumbnail generators. It's about number four, AI voices, synthetic performance. And yeah, that fear is valid. Synthetic voices and the unethical use of them threaten the very human core of our craft. But the mistake we make is we often project that fear onto every other form of AI. and we paralyze ourselves from using the tools that could actually help us thrive. Are you wary of voice cloning? Absolutely valid. Let's have that conversation. Are you raging against somebody using AI to identify and qualify prospects at scale? That kind of thinking may cost you business while everybody else is moving forward and growing their business and you're stuck arguing philosophy. You can't just paint all AI with the same brush. So let's talk ethics, but before we do that, we need a working English language definition of exactly what ethics and AI means. It means, like my thumbnail, improving your efficiency in cases where no human was ever going to be hired in the first place. It means using AI as a starting point and being honest about when that matters. And it means leveraging AI to do the shit that you struggle with, like writing strategic email drafts or crafting really well done drafts of proposals. Where it gets questionable, where it gets unethical is when you're using AI to impersonate, to deceive, to pass off work that... wasn't created by you when it materially matters. When AI models are being trained on work without the original source artist's consent and as Navo famously says, without their compensation and control. Back to the thumbnail, if you were gonna design an image and you were never gonna hire a human designer in the first place, that's not unethical. That's just smart business. That's using a tool to save you time and effort, which is the very definition of a good tool. Remember when Photoshop came out and people RAGED about, THIS IS GOING TO RUIN ART! Or when Squarespace let anybody who could design a website within an hour. Did website designers revolt en masse? When Apollo, automated prospect research, were sales reps a world over, shunned? It's only when AI starts reshaping ID- identity, that which makes us us, that it becomes a problem. I got news for you. If you use Adobe Audition, Auto Heal or Noise Reduction, Squarespace to build your website, Google to research a client, you've already been automating your work. So where's the outrage there? I think half the time we treat AI like a villain because it's new and it's unfamiliar. The tool is not inherently evil. It's the ethics of the user and the companies pushing unethical use of AI and using it unethically. That's the problem. Guys, the tool isn't the threat. The gap between those who use it and those who refuse it is the problem. Here's what's already happening. Voice actors are using AI and creating more content faster thanks to AI tools. Those voice actors are more consistent in their marketing. and more consistent in their follow-up. They reach out faster to more people, they brainstorm more ideas, and they organize their businesses with ruthless efficiency. Meanwhile, those who are resisting AI are spending hours rewriting emails, sifting through outdated CRMs for leads, and missing insights into their financial and other key performance indicators. AI doesn't replace you. The people who use AI better than you. replace you. Look, your real competition isn't just cheap AI narration. It's your peers and colleagues, other voice actors who are using AI to generate strategic email drafts and proposal drafts, to research and generate lists of prospects in a fraction of the time, and to write and edit and publish blog posts and social media content still in a fraction of the time and still with their true authentic voice. Those who keep their online presence fresher in less time. And those who batch their outreach and track the effectiveness of their messaging with ease. The real risk, the real threat is falling behind because your approach and your mindset and most importantly, your tools and systems are stuck in 2019. Here are some examples of where AI actually helps you stand out. You can use AI for lead generation. You can use it to generate orders of magnitude more and better qualified prospects and do it in a fraction of the time. You can craft sharper, more relevant, more strategic email drafts. You can use it to analyze your business and your finances so that your business operates leaner and more efficiently. So here's your filter. Three questions to ask yourself when you're approaching the use of AI to determine whether you're using it ethically or not. Number one, am I replacing or improving something that I did myself anyway? If so, great, you just freed up your own bandwidth. Number two, am I improving the speed or the quality of the output? If yes, great, you're up in your game. And number three, am I misleading anyone or am I unfairly eliminating paid work for another human being? That's the line. That's where you need to check yourself. And yes, there's a cost of doing nothing. What happens if you Stand still on AI. Let's spell it out. Voice actors who use AI tools move faster. They get their demos and their emails in front of more decision makers. And I mean more by a lot. They adapt and test and refine their approach while others are just noodling before they get anything out in the marketplace. Meanwhile, if you choose to stick to manual everything, you will become invisible. your network will shrink and your audition pipeline will eventually dry up. You don't lose to AI, you lose to people who use it better than you do. Look, AI is neither a utopian dream nor is it an existential threat. It's just the next evolution of tech tools. It's not a monolith, it's not inherently unethical and it damn sure isn't going away. You get two choices from here on. Learn how to use it and grow or get left behind by those who do. For talent who want to level up, the opportunity is there. Stop hanging on to outdated workflows and letting a misguided, misinformed debate hold you back from scaling up. You can complain or you can compete. Your call. If you found this video helpful, please share it with another voice actor, another solopreneur, maybe another freelancer, creative pro. If you're watching us on YouTube, please give us a like or a subscribe. We'd love to have you as a subscriber to the channel. If you're listening to us on the audio podcast, give us a follow, maybe even be so kind as to write us a review. That would be fantastic. The more we exchange ideas, opportunities, strategies, tactics, even opinions on this channel and in the VO community at large, the better stronger industry we'll have for everybody, the more we'll be able to take care of our families and loved ones, and in some small way, the better world we will have. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you back here again real soon.