Melisa Vong talks about Ecom Mastery .ai featuring BDSS

So leaning into those, you know, viral style videos, but making them animations has been helping us with like organic traffic. We don't have to spend anything on ads, but we're growing, you know, um, themed pages. So, we call them faceless themed pages, and you can grow them very, very quickly using AI tools to create animations and just like bite-sized uh, educational format content. Hey Melissa, what's going on? Hi Amy, how are you? I'm so good and I am so excited to be calling you because you are joining us as a speaker at ecommastery.ai coming up in April in Nashville. And this is such a cool event. It's going to be like e-commerce, all the e-commerce channels, Amazon, Tik Tok, Shopify, WooCommerce, whatever you got, they're covering it. And then we are merging that with the latest and greatest in with AI. And we ecom sellers, we cannot ignore AI. It's taking over everything. So, it's so great to have an event where we're not just talking about AI and we're not just talking about one e-commerce channel or we're really bringing the latest and greatest. How excited are you about this event? I'm so excited because one, Kevin throws the best events that I've ever been to and this is the first time that I've seen him throw it in this format and make it truly accessible to even just the average e-commerce seller because a lot of his events are usually super high ticket, but knowing him, he's still bringing the same amount of impact and content um and speakers. So, the same level of, you know, awesomeness that he does to all of his events. I'm really stoked for this one. Yeah, I agree. This is, like you said, the first time Kevin's doing an event like this, like specifically in this format. And most of us have been to or spoken at his past events that have been very niche, very high ticket. We have been racing around the island in Kawaii and Hawaii on an adventure race. We have done these insane parties uh at the Gatsby mansion in Austin. Like, there's just so many cool things and elements that Kevin brings to his events that aren't you can't find anywhere else. So, I can't wait. I've heard some things that he's working on for this event and it's seriously if they can pull it off, which I I think they will, but if they can pull it off, it is like people are going to be talking about it for a long time. It's really mind-blowing. So, Melissa, you're going to be talking about omnibrand dominance, AI avatars, persona engineering. AI avatars and persona engineering sound like something out of a sci-fi movie. Like, what is that, Melissa? What does that actually look like for an e-commerce brand in 2026? and how are the smartest sellers already using it? >> Yeah, I mean speaking of AI and sci-fi movies, I don't know if you've seen Logan Paul. He actually just created a movie entirely out of AI and he placed himself and his brother as like main characters, which is it really just goes to show, you know, the ability of what AI can do. Now, um I've also taken my stab at making like mini movies out of AI and the cinematic quality of it is truly, you know, like it's mind-blowing. So when it comes to AI avatars and persona engineering, typically people think, oh, like is it just, you know, an animated character or AI influencers, which by the way are very much, you know, thriving right now. There's a lot of AI influencers who are gaining millions of followers and views, and they're not even real, which is the craziest thing. They're already getting brand deals. They're already representing and working with brands, creating UGC, getting paid for views, which is the craziest part. Now, what we're doing is obviously taking that concept, but applying it to create brand ambassadors for our own brands. Um, and the smartest sellers, they're already creating their accounts. They're already building their digital footprint with AI avatars. It's already slowly being adopted. And if you don't have an AI avatar yet, you are going to get blown away by the people who are using them in their business. So, you're going to see more and more of them. It really is still early on. And I think that it's becoming more widely accepted. people are actually, you know, following these pages and actually wanting to keep up with their content, which is quite insane. Uh especially knowing like the fact that they are AI and they specifically say in their bios like they are AI generated. They're not hiding the fact that they're AI. Some of them are, but the ones that you know are transparent about what they are, in essence, they are killing it. >> Wow. That is incredible to think about. If we even imagined this five years ago, it would seem absolutely insane and we'd be like, "No, that's there's no way that that's ever going to happen." But it is happening and there are so many creators, AI and none, that are growing like crazy. Brands are growing like crazy. The fact that you said that brands are actually hiring AI creators and there's AI creators booking jobs, that's insanity. It's a whole new asset that you can own and you're going to be showing us how to do this. I cannot wait. Melissa, you're such a great speaker. You're such a great teacher. You won the BDSS Hawaii best speaker competition, which that competition, all of Kevin's events, we have best speaker competitions. There is like so much competition there between speakers. Everybody wants to win that award. And you you won it and you were so incredible. I was there. I remember it was amazing. What's the one thing you've done with AI in the last year that's had the biggest impact on your business? >> Yeah, thank you so much by the way. That that really means a lot. That was my first time attending one of Kevin's events. So, it was an honor to be able to speak and also, you know, be crowned best speaker. But one of the things that we're doing with AI right now and not just in like the content creation side of things is first of all, you have to understand that e-commerce brands today, they are essentially a media company and you have to treat your business like it is a media company. And now with AI, you can create content at scale. And it doesn't mean you have to, you know, pass off an AI person as like a real person with which, you know, there's a lot of unethical and borderline unethical things that people are using AI avatars for. And you don't want to lie to your customers. You want to build a foundation based on trust. So the way to do that is to get ahead of it. And you know, like I was saying, transparency is so important. So rather than trying to make your AI avatar look as real as possible, we have taken the a different approach and we try to make them look not real, right? Not human. So that way people know like this person is AI or this animal, right? Like you can have uh characters that are in certain art styles like a like a 3D animated character. Um so we can have like talking dogs for our you know pet brand, things like that. So really leaning into AI avatars but not trying to pass them off as real because as people are going to get a whiff of if you're trying to, you know, pull the wool over their eyes and you're going to lose trust from those consumers and they're getting smarter and smarter. Even though AI is getting smarter, too, like it's almost undetectable what is real and what is not, but there's still people like me and you who are still smart enough that can see, you know, the digital footprint of AI and you know, there's certain things that you can notice that is a dead giveaway. So leaning into those, you know, viral style videos, but making them animations has been helping us with like organic traffic. We don't have to spend anything on ads, but we're growing, you know, um, themed pages. So, we call them faceless themed pages, and you can grow them very, very quickly using AI tools to create animations and just like bite-sized educational format content. >> Wow, that is really cool. I think um as you mentioned as AI gets more and more complex and really does start fooling people, I don't want to be the brand that's found out that I fooled someone, right? And and I don't want to lose customers over that. I think the smart thing to do is be transparent, but be creative, be entertaining, and um and give your surprise and delight your customers and potential new customers that are coming your way. So, that is great. I know that your session in Nashville is going to blow minds. For someone who thinks AI avatars are too advanced for them, what would you say? >> Uh, I'd say it's way simpler than you think and you're probably not that far off. I mean, you don't need a crazy tech stack or know how to code or anything like that. There's so many tools now that allow you to create them in less than two minutes. So, even just Nano Banana Pro, right? I'm obviously going to dive deeper into the step-by-step process on how to do it. and people will probably walk out of my session already with an AI avatar and account and you know already pre-populated videos. So, make sure you don't miss my session because I'm throwing it all out there. Um, but it it is easier than you think. And I think that even just me walking people in a room through it, they'll be able to understand, okay, I can literally do this from my phone and have it up and running, you know, within the 30 minutes that I have on stage. >> Wow. I can't wait for your session. There are so many sessions I can't wait for. I've been interviewing a lot of speakers and I'm learning things in these interviews that I didn't know were possible. I've played around with AI avatars, but I haven't dove into the character avatars and I haven't played for a while because things have advanced so fast that I would learn something and then it was like the next day this other tool came out that replaced all my other steps. So, I kind of played for a while and learned it and then I kind of paused. So, I'm excited to pick it back up and try again and really get after uh AI avatars. I think it's going to help me in all of my businesses and help my clients as well. So, I'm so excited to learn from you in Nashville, April 8th through the 12th at ecommastery.ai. Everyone who is watching our call right now can uh use code mastery at ecommastery.ai to save 20% on their ticket. We're almost sold out already. So, I know that this event is going to sell out and I can't wait for hanging out, the networking, everything that's going to be happening. And no matter where you're coming from, whether you're a beginner just looking to get into e-commerce or you are a multi-million dollar brand, there's going to be incredible things at this event for you. So Melissa, I can't wait to see you. I'm so excited to hear your talk and we'll see you in Nashville. See you in Nashville.