Zero-Cost Code, AI Avatars, and What Happens Next

Friends,

Your weekly AI briefing is here to help you respond to what matters in AI. Clear signals. No chaos.

🧠 Everything Tricky Is About to Get Easy

Why AI Literacy Just Became Your Business Superpower

Last night saw the latest Gemini update, just weeks after the last. AI tools are evolving faster than most teams can process—what used to take years in traditional software now happens in weeks.

That means anything you find difficult today—strategy decks, staff training, customer insight generation—may become trivial tomorrow. But only if your business is ready to adapt.

➡️ AI Night School returns on 11th June
We’re kicking off our next cohort to help you and your team build practical AI fluency. If you want in, reply to this or reach out directly.
Spots are limited (again).

👉 If this helps you, share it with someone who’s trying to make sense of the noise.

🔥 URGENT PRIORITIES

❗ Nothing Urgent, or Is this Still Useful?

Nothing is urgent this week…

🎯 STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS

🧭 When Code Costs Nothing, What Matters?

The cost of producing high-quality software is tending towards zero. AI tools can now generate, test, and debug code at speed—meaning your real competitive advantage comes from how well you frame problems and design for impact.

Not sure where to begin?

➡️ Start with an AI Readiness Audit
Get clear on where your team stands and what to prioritise.
We're also running a Salon on AI Readiness—we’ll walk through Hugo’s AI-First Maturity Model and help you map where your organisation is today.
Want in? Just say the word.

And if you’re already:

✅ Training your team to use AI tools
✅ Exploring where AI fits in your business
✅ Starting to track value from AI experiments

…you’re building a real advantage.

🤓 GEEK OUT

🤖 The Avatars Are Coming—and They’re Shockingly Good

We’re hurtling toward human-equivalent avatars. These aren’t gimmicks—they’re about to reshape how we train, market, and communicate across every function.

🎥 HeyGen AI Studio
Control avatars using gesture prompts. The lip-syncing and body language? Wildly realistic.

Why this matters:
This isn’t just a time-saver. It’s a creative unlock. SMEs can now create explainer videos, onboarding flows, or training content without a single shoot day. Big-budget feel, no big-budget need.

🎙️ ElevenLabs v3
Voice cloning with expressive emotion, tone variation, and natural pacing. It sounds real—and increasingly, it feels real.

Why this matters:
Storytelling, training, support—anything that benefits from tone and nuance just got a major upgrade. Flat TTS is out. Emotional AI audio is in.

🎬 Veed
Brilliant for turning text into video, now with expanding avatar and voice options.

Why this matters:
Perfect for teams moving fast. Whether you’re testing product messaging or updating internal teams—skip the camera and publish in minutes.

🧠 Claude Explains
Anthropic’s Claude is now writing its own blog, with human oversight.
📚 TechCrunch explains it.

Why this matters:
This is another glimpse into a world where the cost of doing is trending towards zero. The writing is strong. The topics are timely. If you’re still treating content creation like a linear, labour-intensive process, it’s time to rethink your workflows—and reimagine what your team could achieve with the right prompts.

🎨 WEEKEND PLAYGROUND

🎥 Try This
Fire up HeyGen this weekend. Create a version of you that delivers your pitch, update, or welcome message.
You might be surprised how quickly “weird” becomes workflow.

📢 Share Your Thoughts

If What Now?! has helped you make smarter decisions, send it to someone else who’s trying to cut through the noise.

If it’s not quite hitting, tell us what’s missing. Just hit reply.

Have a good week,
Hugo & Ben