Matt B. Britton with Jason Barnard on Fastlane Founders And Legacy. Generation AI

Matt B. Britton talks with Jason Barnard about Generation AI.

Matt B. Britton is a consumer trend expert, and the founder and CEO of Suzy. Matt discusses the impact of Generation Alpha (born 0-15) and their relationship with AI, positioning them as the first generation to grow up with AI seamlessly integrated into their lives.
Matt B. Britton and Jason Barnard discuss how AI will redefine everything from career paths to parenting, education, and business, significantly impacting how we live and work. Matt emphasizes the potential mental health consequences of AI influence on interpersonal relationships.

Matt B. Britton and Jason Barnard also delve into corporate AI adoption and the growing need for AI literacy, both agreeing that AI will disrupt industries, particularly knowledge-based fields. They highlight how AI will redefine traditional job roles, urging professionals to adapt to remain competitive in an increasingly automated world.

What you’ll learn from Matt B. Britton

00:00 Matt B. Britton and Jason Barnard
01:20 Why Did Jason Barnard Say He is Out of Touch With the World When Talking About Generation Alpha?
01:42 What is Generation Alpha?
01:51 What is Generation Z?
01:57 What are Millennials?
02:11 What Did Jason Barnard Emphasize About the Brand SERP of Matt Britton?
02:42 What Did Jason Barnard Find Interesting About Google Associating Matt Britton With Footballers?
02:58 Why Did Jason Barnard Ask Gemini to Find a Connection Between Matt Britton and Footballers?
04:53 What Are the Two Factors the Book Generation AI is About?
05:10 What Does the Book Generation AI Say About How Gen Alpha and AI Will Reshape Society?
05:27 Why Did Matt Britton Write the Generation AI Book?
06:04 How Important Are the People Growing Up with AI Compared to the Actual Technology?
06:18 What Challenges Will Parents Face With Kids Having Easy Access to AI?
06:32 What Impact Could Interacting With Human-Like Bots Have On How Young Kids Understand the Real World?
06:53 What Effect Might Growing Up With AI Have On the Brain Development and Relationships of Gen Alpha?
07:44 What Did Matt Britton Mean by “Other Humans” When Talking About Kids Interacting With AI Tools?
08:18 How Does the Impact of AI on Individuals, Particularly in Tragic Cases Like Suicide, Affect Society?
09:05 What Challenges Do Teachers Face in Keeping Up With Educating Children in the AI Era?
10:12 Why is it Surprising That Copilot Adoption is Slow, Even Though AI is Powerful and Widely Useful?
10:31 What Shift in Cultural Influence Did the Book Youth Nation Highlight About Younger Generations?
11:08 How Has Social Media Empowered Young People to Influence Culture and Society?
11:24 How Will the Generation Alpha Use of AI Influence How Society Adopts and Interacts With AI?
12:22 Why Will Merely Using AI as a Tool Not Be Enough in the Future?
12:34 Why is it Important for Professionals to Fully Understand AI?
13:47 Why is AI Considered Capable of Handling Complex Jobs, Despite Being Seen as Only for Simple Tasks?
14:17 Which Types of Jobs Are More at Risk of Being Replaced by AI?
15:23 What Will Determine Whether Society Accepts the Widespread Use of Advanced AI Technologies?
16:03 What Kinds of Skills or Fields Will Offer Job Opportunities in an AI-Driven Future?
17:10 What Types of Professionals Are Most at Risk of Being Disrupted by AI Advancements?
17:35 How Can AI Demonstrate Creativity and Push Boundaries in Ways Similar to Humans?
19:32 What Should Businesses Do Today to Prepare for Tomorrow With AI?

This episode was recorded live on video May 6th 2025

Links to pieces of content relevant to this topic:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-speed-of-culture-podcast/id1617896513
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFy_l5sun95/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Matt B. Britton

Transcript from Matt B. Britton with Jason Barnard on Fastlane Founders And Legacy. Generation AI

[00:00:00] Matt B. Britton: You are going to see as Gen Alpha, comes of age, their use of AI is going to essentially dictate the way the society ingest AI. Because again, the tool of AI is going to be native to them and they will know no other way. It’s far left or far right. Not politically, but the left brain. Right brain, right. And those are the people who are going to be successful. But the people who are in the middle, who are jack of all trades, master of none, the liberal arts professionals, the people who have made a living on maintaining knowledge and selling that knowledge, I think are the ones that are really going to find themselves on the wrong side of this disruption.

[00:00:35] Narrator: Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard.

[00:00:39] Narrator: Each week, Jason sits down with successful entrepreneurs, CEOs, and executives, and get them to share how they mastered the delicate balance between rapid growth and enduring success in the business world. How can we quickly build a profitable business that stands at test of time and becomes their legacy?

[00:00:58] Narrator: A legacy we’re proud of. Fastlane Founders and Legacy With Jason Barnard…

[00:01:04] Jason Barnard: Hi everybody and welcome to another Fastlane Founders and Legacy. I’m Jason Barnard and I’m here with, a quick hello and we’re good to go. Welcome to the show, Matt Britton.

[00:01:17] Matt B. Britton: Thanks for having me.

[00:01:18] Jason Barnard: Absolutely delighted. We’re going to be talking about Generation AI and you talk about Generation Alpha, which I had never heard about.

[00:01:26] Jason Barnard: And it probably just shows how out of touch I am with the world. There may be other people out there who are as out of touch as I am. And will be interested to know what that is, but you are talking about marketing to them.

[00:01:41] Matt B. Britton: Correct. So Generation Alpha is currently age zero to 15. The hallmark of Generation Alpha is they are the first generation to grow up with AI in the household.

[00:01:51] Matt B. Britton: So much like Generation Z was the first generation to grow up with a mobile device, such as the iPhone in the household. And millennials were the first generation to grow up with the internet, which is why they’re referred to as digital natives. Gen Alpha is going to be ushered in by a technology with power and impact, like what we’ve never seen before.

[00:02:09] Jason Barnard: Wow. Cool. That’s a brilliant introduction. But before we get into the conversation, I look at Brand SERP and here I search for your name Matt B. Britton, because that is what your Knowledge Panel says. So Google believes that your name is Matt B. Britton, and you were telling me that you don’t actually systematically use it.

[00:02:27] Jason Barnard: So Google’s picked up on that somewhere and it’s associating you still with your old company, MLY. And part of what we do at Kalicube is make sure that information is up to date.

[00:02:40] Matt B. Britton: We’ll have to talk about that separately.

[00:02:42] Jason Barnard: But the other thing I found really interesting is are you an American footballer?

[00:02:48] Matt B. Britton: I’m not.

[00:02:49] Jason Barnard: Because you’re associated with all these American footballers, which I found really curious because I couldn’t find any information about you as an American footballer. So I then asked Gemini, can you find a connection between these people? And I found it super interesting to use AI to figure out why Google Search is making that mistake associating you with American footballers when it’s actually not your career.

[00:03:17] Jason Barnard: And what it’s come up with at the end of the day is if you’re watching the video that you are associated with prominent Miami hurricane figures. I would assume that’s simply a mistake in the name of the person, i.e., it’s another Matt Britain.

[00:03:38] Matt B. Britton: Yeah, it must be.

[00:03:39] Jason Barnard: Well, and from our perspective at Kalicube, this is a huge problem. There are so many Matt Brittons in the world.

[00:03:45] Jason Barnard: How does Google know which one is you?

[00:03:47] Matt B. Britton: Exactly. That’s exactly right.

[00:03:48] Jason Barnard: And in this particular case, it thinks you’re the American footballer who played with all these people at Miami. I love this stuff. I spent my entire life digging into this stuff and figuring out why Google and AI are getting it wrong or how we can make it, get them, get it more right or give you the results that you deserve.

[00:04:06] Jason Barnard: And your case was delightful for me. I spent the afternoon digging into this. I had fun.

[00:04:11] Matt B. Britton: Thanks for digging in there. I was unaware of some of those things.

[00:04:14] Jason Barnard: Yeah, for me it’s just fun. But you’ve written a book, which I really want to put up there, Generation AI, and that’s coming out from what I understand, literally today.

[00:04:27] Matt B. Britton: It comes out May 6. It’s available on presale, but yes, it’s coming out today.

[00:04:31] Jason Barnard: So Generation AI, you’ve explained briefly what the. How can I say it? Pitch, what’s the book? What’s the approach? Why are these people so important and why is it so interesting? My personal perspective is, as you say, first generation that will be AI native. Thank you. Brilliant. Thank you.

[00:04:53] Matt B. Britton: Yeah, so the book Generation AI is really about two factors. It’s about this generation, Generation Alpha, which you just explained and how they’re going to be different than previous generations, as well as the more broad impact of AI on business, culture and society.

[00:05:10] Matt B. Britton: And those two things combined AI’s growing impact and Gen Alpha’s growing impact is going to create a whole new realm in society. And it’s going to change everything from the way we look at our career paths, to parenting, to relationships, to the way that we buy products and services. So I wrote a book to really at a 30,000 foot view, give the reader an idea of the world that we’re entering in and what they can do to future proof themselves in that regard.

[00:05:39] Jason Barnard: Yeah, and what I find really interesting from this is I was thinking, okay, AI, huge shift. We need to face up to it. Personally speaking at Kalicube, I feel relatively comfortable because I feel I’ve got the grip on how AI understands my company, but I hadn’t thought about the influence of the people who are growing up with this.

[00:05:59] Jason Barnard: How important are the people compared to the actual technology?

[00:06:04] Matt B. Britton: The people are the ones who are going to bring this technology to life and the way in which consumers and professionals and parents adopt AI or don’t is really going to change the trajectory of AI’s impact on society. Obviously when you look at AI in a household, which is a big part of the book, parents are going to have to wrestle with kids having this powerful technology at their fingertips, which essentially emulates human interactions. So if you think about it, if you’re seven or eight years old and you’re interacting deeply with a chat bot and it’s interacting with you the same way the other humans that you interact with in the outside world do, it could confuse you and it creates a completely new worldview.

[00:06:47] Matt B. Britton: So you and I, when we interact with ChatGPT, we interact with it like it’s a technology tool. For younger people who know no other way, their brains are going to be rewired differently. And how that impacts their interpersonal relationships is yet to be seen. We’ve seen the mental health impact of Gen Z based upon Covid, and them being separated from other people as well as them entering this virtual world of Instagram, Snapchat, et cetera.

[00:07:14] Matt B. Britton: And it’s created, obviously a lot of opportunities, but it’s created a lot of detrimental impact as well. And I think AI is going to be doing the same with Gen Alpha.

[00:07:24] Jason Barnard: But even more so. I’m going to come back and I’m going to pick you up on one thing that you said. You said other humans and does that mean you are so in this, that for you AI is another human?

[00:07:37] Jason Barnard: Or are you saying that kids of eight, nine years old are beginning not to be able to see the difference between a human?

[00:07:44] Matt B. Britton: I think it remains to be seen because aI is so new. Gen Alpha is so new. And I didn’t mean to misinterpret AI as a human. I meant in addition, other human beings not to suggest AI, the human being.

[00:07:58] Jason Barnard: I wasn’t picking you up on a particular idea or I was just thinking, it’s interesting that would become part of the conversation, and I’m suspecting now as you as we’re talking about this that we will start to see them as humans, and that distinction is going to become less obvious over time.

[00:08:18] Matt B. Britton: There’s currently a wrongful death lawsuit of a teenager who tragically committed suicide after having deep and intimate interactions with a chat bot. And allegedly, the interactions with the chat bot led this young person to commit suicide and the emotional hooks that this chat bot had on this individual really caused this individual to interact and behave in a way that perhaps normally they wouldn’t.

[00:08:48] Matt B. Britton: We’ve never seen that type of impact before from technology and I think that is a whole new realm, which is one of the topics I covered during the book.

[00:08:56] Jason Barnard: Right. And then you have two huge problems is parenting doesn’t know what to do or can’t keep up.

[00:09:04] Matt B. Britton: Yep. And you also have teachers. So you know, I spoke in front of 700 college professors late last year.

[00:09:12] Matt B. Britton: Many of them came up to me after my keynote and said, what am I supposed to do when my textbooks were written before the AI era? So these are people that are trained with inspiring and teaching and informing tomorrow’s leaders. Yet the tools that they have at their disposal is devoid of the most important technology we’ve had in our lifetime.

[00:09:34] Matt B. Britton: So there are so many gaps in parenting in the workforce and in the education system that we’re going to have to fill over time if we’re going to be able to catch up.

[00:09:44] Jason Barnard: Right. And then if we move into business, what I’m thinking right now, and this might be incorrect or unreasonable, but we look at AI and there’s a slow uptake.

[00:09:59] Jason Barnard: 6% of companies in the USA are actually using AI at corporate level. People are using it individually. So there’s a slow uptake. And that has been surprising. For example, Bing who were thinking that Copilot would take off really quickly and it’s taken off less quickly than they thought.

[00:10:19] Jason Barnard: And however good the technology is, adoption is the key. And these Generation Alpha kids are the adoption where it’s going to be completely normal for them.

[00:10:30] Matt B. Britton: That’s right. And we saw that happen with past generations. I wrote a book 10 years ago called Youth Nation and the thesis behind Youth Nation is that for the first time, and this was 10 years ago, young people were at the driver’s seat of culture.

[00:10:45] Matt B. Britton: So if you think about the sixties and seventies, young people largely counter culture. They did not have a large voice. They protested, they went to Woodstock but the what drove culture was what was played on heavy rotation on the radio or what was on the limited amount of TV stations. And if they had a different worldview or point of view, they weren’t able to impact that at scale. And then of course in the social media era, all of a sudden they had this great megaphone with tools like Instagram and YouTube where they can dictate culture. And ever since then, what we’ve seen is what gets adopted in the youth market then, ultimately proliferates to society as a whole.

[00:11:24] Matt B. Britton: And I think you’re going to see as Gen Alpha, comes of age, their use of AI is going to essentially dictate the way the society ingest AI because again, the tool of AI is going to be native to them and they will know no other way.

[00:11:40] Jason Barnard: Right. For me, this is a really interesting way to look at it. I mean, I think as you’re saying that the Gen Z don’t have AI native.

[00:11:50] Matt B. Britton: Correct.

[00:11:51] Jason Barnard: So even those younger people are struggling and somebody like me who is into AI is the exception in my generation and probably all the generations.

[00:12:01] Matt B. Britton: Me too, me too. I’m a Gen X and most of my friends who I grew up with, who I know, they look at me like some science fiction character based upon all the ways I’m using it.

[00:12:11] Matt B. Britton: Because I had to kind of break out of the mold. I’m just like you. It sounds like just technologically curious and love having hands on keyboard and love understanding how this works. For most people, use it as a path to whatever they’re doing in their work, but they don’t seek out ways to use it to really drive them forward.

[00:12:30] Matt B. Britton: It’s just kind of like another tool, but that’s not going to be an option anymore. I think for people to be successful, especially because AI is so impactful at replacing so many workflows that were once just reserved for human beings, I think really the bar is raised for every professional to really prioritize their full understanding of this technology. And to your point earlier, most are not.

[00:12:56] Jason Barnard: Yeah, I’ve been surprised. I kind of thought everybody was looking at this to the extent that I am.

[00:13:02] Matt B. Britton: People are using it to turn their dogs into humans or turn themselves into action characters, and they think it’s like a parlor trick. And, you know, maybe they’re using it to find the latest recipe for lasagna.

[00:13:13] Matt B. Britton: Right. But they’re not really understanding its real power. And I think ultimately they’re either going to find out because they do decide to jump in, or they’re going to find out the hard way when one day they get a call from their supervisor that their services are no longer needed. And I don’t mean to sound draconian, but that’s sort of the world that seems like we’re entering.

[00:13:33] Jason Barnard: Yeah. And there is the whole question of is AI replacing jobs? And the answer is it can do the very simple jobs. And if you are doing a simple job, you need to upskill and you need to think about it now.

[00:13:47] Matt B. Britton: I don’t agree with that statement. I think AI can do very complex jobs. For example, it recently was proven through a study that AI can create more accurate readings of x-rays.

[00:13:57] Matt B. Britton: People who are radiologists wouldn’t say that their job is a simple job, right? They’re detecting cancer. And they’ve been trained through many years of medical school and on the job experience. Yet, here’s a technology that can, in a more accurate, consistent way, at a small fraction of the cost, read x-rays.

[00:14:17] Matt B. Britton: And there’s so many examples like that where it’s not just replacing blue collar work. In fact, more so it’s replacing white collar knowledge-based workers and even sophisticated complex fields like in the medical industry.

[00:14:32] Jason Barnard: Now, you say that perhaps even more so. If I’m selling tomatoes, I’ve still got a job tomorrow.

[00:14:37] Matt B. Britton: Yeah. Yeah. Or if you’re a good chef, right? Like there’s certain things that are uniquely human, but over time, are you going to go to a store, like, we’ve already seen self-checkout at stores. Like Amazon has this technology. At some airports where you can grab things and walk right out, and it just you tap your credit card when you’re walking in, you walk right out.

[00:15:01] Matt B. Britton: Well, as that technology gets better and more reliable, will there need to be a cashier at a store anymore? Right. So will restaurants deploy robotics to take the place of waiters and waitresses or chefs? So there’s no reason to believe it won’t because the technology’s there. It’s just will society accept that is the question.

[00:15:23] Jason Barnard: Yeah. And I love the idea of will society accept it? And the Generation Alpha, the society of tomorrow, who are maybe going to force us, I think you were suggesting earlier on.

[00:15:33] Matt B. Britton: I mean for them, for what may be taboo for others, won’t be for them. I think about telephone calls. Like when I was growing up, we used to call each other and Gen Z does not make phone calls at all.

[00:15:46] Matt B. Britton: They have a phone, but they used it for everything but to make phone calls, right? And the way they interact with people would’ve seemed far to people 10, 15 years ago. So to think that’s just that evolution’s going to stop, I think is a misnomer.

[00:16:01] Jason Barnard: So where are there going to be jobs?

[00:16:03] Matt B. Britton: So I believe, and I get asked this all the time by parents who are just freaked out after I talk about this brave new world, mostly about like, what does it mean for my kids, right?

[00:16:12] Matt B. Britton: That’s what people, especially parents think about, and I tell them the same thing always, that there’s going to be opportunities if you go deep into an art or deep into a science. So deep into an art, meaning you become excellent and a master at creativity, critical thinking and problem solving.

[00:16:27] Matt B. Britton: Because ultimately, AI is a great tool, but somebody still needs to tell AI what problem to solve, right? It’s not just going to start solving problems on its own, right? So that’s a big skillset and it’s less about a knowledge worker who’s maintaining knowledge on essentially how to write a contract, for example, because AI can write a contract now, but it’s understanding when you need a contract.

[00:16:51] Matt B. Britton: So that’s a completely different skillset, right? Or going deep into a science, which is really learning how to go deep into engineering and technology so you can build and operate and deploy these machines. So it’s far left. They’re far right. Not politically, but left brain, right brain, right. And those are the people who are going to be successful, but the people who are in the middle, who are jack of all trades, master of none, the liberal arts professionals, the people who have made a living on maintaining knowledge and selling that knowledge, I think are the ones that are really going to find themselves on the wrong side of this disruption.

[00:17:23] Jason Barnard: Right. Yeah. I was thinking about the creativity and the human ability to move the boundaries. And then there’s the whole debate about whether AI can be created. Where do you stand on that?

[00:17:34] Matt B. Britton: Oh, it’s very creative. I mean, if you look at ChatGPT 4.0’s new image generator and you give it a very complex query to output an image of a child who’s playing with a sunflower on a snow cap mountain.

[00:17:49] Matt B. Britton: In July in Aspen, Colorado, and you ask it for a certain glow, or you want it to be during sunset, it will be able to output that in an incredibly impactful and accurate way. And then on top of it, if you want to give it a prompt to say, make this image in such a way where you know that there’s something bad, there’s storms on the horizon.

[00:18:12] Matt B. Britton: It will be able to symbolize that not only in the look of the character that boy’s playing with the flower, but also in the weather and other ways to symbolize a story in a way that you would have to brief a graphic designer and have multiple rounds of feedback to do. So that’s an example of imagery or art, if you will.

[00:18:34] Matt B. Britton: And then the other part of creativity is copywriting and the writing ability of these tools, it’s continuing to get better. So if you think about the ability to be creative is really what we read and what we see. And now even what you hear. It can create music now, it can create videos.

[00:18:52] Matt B. Britton: It is incredibly creative. And is it going to create artwork that’s better than the Picasso? Maybe not, but I think for most everyday uses, who is creating that? Well, humans aren’t doing that either, right. So I think it’s an incredibly creative tool, and I think, but yet somebody has to tell it what to do.

[00:19:11] Matt B. Britton: Somebody has to paint the picture on what it’s going to create. So it’s not really understanding how to solve the problem, it’s knowing what problem to solve is going to be the skillset that’s in demand.

[00:19:21] Jason Barnard: Right. Well, I look back and last question then is, as businesses today, what do we need to do today to prepare for tomorrow with AI?

[00:19:32] Matt B. Britton: So what I often tell people is AI is all about problem solving, right? And the problem solving could be you need this piece of artwork or image done. It could be something more grandiose. So for me, the first problem I tried to solve with AI that really led me down a path to understanding its powers, I created my own health bot where I created a custom GPT that I loaded in all my historical health information because the number one problem I want to solve for is staying alive, right?

[00:19:59] Matt B. Britton: And I wanted a tool. I wanted to use AI to help me solve that. It’s almost like you go through your hierarchy of needs, staying alive, make sure you can put food and shelter over your family. So it’s like, okay, well, how can imagine my finances? And you really understand what the tool can do in ways to help you personally, which you’re most vested in solving through that process, then you can correlate that to business. So what is the blood test and MRI information for your business? It might be customer data or financial data. And then how can you help it solve problems in your business? And once you really get that framework, things start to open up for you and you really start to understand ways it can apply to almost everything you do.

[00:20:40] Matt B. Britton: But I think it all starts with solving one problem. It’s best to solve a problem that’s near and dear to you to really move yourself along that continuum.

[00:20:49] Jason Barnard: That is the most brilliant piece of advice I’ve heard. I’ve actually just written down, if anybody noticed, what I’m going to do right after this show.

[00:20:57] Matt B. Britton: And that framework is very much what the book is about, in terms of, because I didn’t want to just try to scare everyone saying, how much is the world changing? I also wanted people to understand what to do about it in practical ways.

[00:21:10] Jason Barnard: Thank you so much, Matt. That was absolutely brilliant. I hope everybody watching enjoyed it and got something out of it. You get the outro song. A quick goodbye to end the show. Thank you, Matt.

[00:21:22] Narrator: Your Corporate and Personal Brands are what Google and AI say they are. We can give you back control. Kalicube.