Entrepreneur Weekly Podcast with Alan Taylor: AI Mavericks Conference with Scott Duffy & Friends
With Jason Barnard, the “Google GOAT” and “Brand SERP Guy”
Jason Barnard, a world-leading expert on digital brand management, discusses how his methodology helps entrepreneurs, founders, and businesses control their online narratives in an AI-first world.
Scott introduces Jason Barnard, who developed a tool to help brands build authority in the AI sector by enhancing their online presence. Jason stresses the importance of a strong digital narrative, noting that he, despite his background, needed to boost his online authority at his company, Kalicube®. Barnard focuses on training AI, like Google’s algorithms, to represent individuals’ credibility and expertise accurately. He encourages people to take control of their online narrative to ensure they are seen as credible experts. By testing AI platforms with inquiries about notable figures, individuals can see how consistent branding fosters trust - like teaching a dog a trick.
The Big Takeaways
- AI is the new gatekeeper. In the past, marketers used SEO to stand out in Google search results, but now the critical question is how a brand is represented in a single, synthesized answer from an AI like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot.
- A fragmented digital presence is a liability. If a brand’s online footprint is confusing or inconsistent, AI engines will often make up facts (hallucinate) to fill in the gaps, leading to a negative or inaccurate brand narrative.
- Proactively “educating” the algorithms is key. Jason Barnard’s core philosophy is to teach algorithms who you are, what you do, and why you are credible. This is a deliberate, systematic approach to controlling a brand’s reputation rather than a simple reaction to a crisis.
- The stakes are high. Jason shares a personal story about how his past as the voice of a cartoon blue dog, while successful, undermined his professional credibility when people Googled his name for his new company. He had to actively change the narrative to be taken seriously as a digital marketing expert.
- The Brand SERP is the ultimate KPI. What appears when a user types a brand’s name into a search engine is now the ultimate business card and resume for a brand. A positive and accurate Brand SERP, including what AI says about you, is a direct reflection of a healthy digital brand.
- The world has shifted. The rapid rise of AI has created a “whole new world,” and the challenge for businesses is to adapt their marketing to this new reality. Ignoring this shift means losing control of the brand narrative and missing opportunities.
- The solution is a structured approach. Jason’s company, Kalicube, uses its proprietary process to help brands control their narratives. This process involves translating a brand’s identity into a machine-readable format so that AI platforms confidently represent the brand in a consistent and truthful way.
- The goal is Algorithmic Confidence and control. The ultimate win is when every major AI platform - from Google to ChatGPT - provides a similar, positive, and accurate summary of your brand, affirming your status as a world leader and expert in your field.
Transcript from Jason’s section of
- Scott Duffy:Well, so Jason Barnard has a tool that, I mean, I’ve been working with Jason for the last four years. Welcome to the show, Jason.
- Jason Barnard: Thank you very much, Scott.
- Scott Duffy: That is so practical and is so easy to use, and it can really help to set you up, help your brand to be set up to be an expert as viewed by AI. So, you know, in the past, a lot of us have worked really hard on things like SEO to make ourselves stand out on Google search.
- Alan Taylor: Optimization, right?
- Scott Duffy: Yeah. And we Google Knowledge Panels, but the question, Alan, is what happens when someone types your name into ChatGPT, right? How do you train ChatGPT that you’re the person it responds with, saying who you are with your message? And and that’s really what Jason is all about.
- Alan Taylor: Well, so you came all the way from Paris to be at this event, and and it’s funny because when Scott said, “Where’s everybody from?” It was like, “Wow, what a mixture of people from all over the United States.” And then you from Paris, Jason, Jason, just so you know, touts himself and through if you search him as like the number one AI expert in the world.
- Jason Barnard: Yep. I’m the expert in digital brand narrative and managing and optimizing as you said, your personal or corporate brand message as represented by Google and AI, how you show up.
- Scott Duffy: It’s because you understand how it works and and you are able to control it, which I love that because the “it” that everybody hears about AI, we don’t know what it is and where it is, where I don’t even know where the cloud is. For goodness sakes, what is the cloud? Right. But you have the ability to help carve out the narrative when somebody does a search on Scott Duffy.
- Jason Barnard: Yeah.
- Alan Taylor: And Scott, you had this problem.
- Scott Duffy: I did.
- Alan Taylor: You had the problem. What shows up in the search can be crafted from behind to where you can actually have the truest version of you show up when somebody does, instead of -
- Scott Duffy: Whatever is being made up or God knows where it comes from, or some other Scott Duffy that isn’t even this Scott Duffy.
- Jason Barnard: Yep. Well, I mean, Google and AI can often figure it out, but often get it wrong or underrepresent you. You’ve you’ve built this incredible career. You’ve got these amazing authority signals. You work with Richard Branson. You work with Tony Robbins. It wasn’t showing. But what we can do is get Google and AI to prioritize what you want. So, Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, incredible leading expert. I’m the world authority on digital brand management, and I can get the machines to say that about me because of the way we work, because of the way we educate.
- Alan Taylor: Twelve years and all I can say is when I was watching and listening to you on stage here at the AI Mavericks event, and Scott, is there a website for this, people can is it scottduffy.com, what is it?
- Scott Duffy: Scott AIMavericks.ai.
- Alan Taylor: okay mavericks.ai and they’ll find it if they search your name too, I’m sure, but when I was listening to what you were saying, Jason, I thought to myself, he’s got the holy grail.
- Scott Duffy: Yeah. Well, it’s true. I mean, I didn’t know this until I found out the hard way. There’s like 25,000 Scott Duffys in the world. Who knew, right? And one of those Scott Duffys has over a million people who’ve watched his online courses and is a partner with a big brand out there and is an expert in SEO. How do you compete with that?
- Alan Taylor: Wait a minute. And it’s not you.
- Scott Duffy: And it’s not me. Okay.
- Alan Taylor: Well, hold still. Have you had that happen? You know the Alan Taylor that I get confused with? He’s the producer of a bunch of different movies and things and everybody’s like, “You’re a movie producer?” I’m like, “Yes, I am, Mike.” We’ll be right back. Let’s continue more talking about AI Mavericks, Scott Duffy, and Jason. And we’ll be right back. Stay with us. All right, welcome back. Thanks for joining us once again. Entrepreneur Weekly on location today in Los Angeles. Actually, we’re in Marina del Rey. Is that where we are? We, we, we’re playing something there. Scott Duffy is here and Jason Barnard, who is an amazing fellow.
- Scott Duffy: Yeah.
- Alan Taylor: Can you tell the world before I forget again your website and how they can reach or find you and learn about you because I think you are one of the most important people in the world when it comes to AI and when it comes to business and understanding how things work. You said it. You said all the way from Paris, there’s evidently a little bakery downstairs and you went downstairs and talked to the bakery and you explained it to the baker in two minutes. I can’t do that. It’s going to take me a half an hour. But but tell the world about your website and what you do.
- Jason Barnard: Right. Well, our role at Kalicube, K. A. L. I. C. U. B. E., is to teach the algorithms, Google, AI, ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, who you are, what you do, and who you serve, and that you are credible. So, our role is to translate your personal brand for the machines so that they will then represent you the way you want.
- Alan Taylor: He’s a computer teacher. He teaches the computers. Well, he he does and it’s just here’s the thing, people believe what most AI tells them. And so if you go into ChatGPT or you go into any of you go into Meta or you go into any of of Google Gemini and you ask who Alan Taylor is, who Scott Duffy is -
- Scott Duffy: Movie producer,
- Alan Taylor: A movie,
- Scott Duffy: Whatever.
- Alan Taylor: A Udemy teacher,
- Scott Duffy: That’s a Udemy teacher.
- Alan Taylor: That’s right. Whatever comes up is what they’re going to believe. They’re going to believe that that is the expert. So, if you can get them to highlight you first and you can craft your brand narrative, your message in a way that helps represent you best, that is so powerful, right?
- Jason Barnard: Well, and here’s the trick. Go to ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Copilot, Perplexity, or Google, Gemini, or Google Search. Ask, “Tell me about Jason Barnard,” and see what it answers. They will all answer more or less the same thing. They will all get the facts straight, and they will all say things like, “Incredible world leader, serial entrepreneur, award-winning innovator, and I have taught them to do that.” It’s like teaching a dog a trick. And they all have learned this trick. And that’s the beauty. It for all of them without exception.
- Scott Duffy: Well, you know, and then after they search for you, they should type in their own name and see see what comes up and maybe what needs to be cleaned up.
- Jason Barnard: Y.
- Scott Duffy: And really that’s where you come in. That’s where we’ve come in for me, is helping to make sure that we have kind of my brand narrative down the way that really I want to tell the story.
- Jason Barnard: Yeah.
- Alan Taylor: So, you know, what is that, um, the guy with the big sledgehammer that, uh, flies around and throws his big sledgehammer at people. That’s a, it was a big movie. Thor. Thor. Thank you. Evidently, I produce Thor.
- Alan Taylor, right? And that’s the problem. He’s got a bigger name than me, but only in movie producing.
- Jason Barnard: Now, I’m going to tell you a cool story why I started doing this. Why I started manipulating the algorithms from the outside to represent me the way I wanted, because I was the CEO of an entertainment company. We made cartoons with ITV International, it was on Playhouse Disney, huge success, and I was the voiceover artist for the dog. It was a blue cartoon dog. And when I pivoted, I exited the company called Up to 10. I pivoted into digital marketing entrepreneurship. And I would go to pitch to clients and they would say, “Yeah, brilliant. We’ll have Kalicube on board. We want to work with you. This is brilliant.” I would give them my business card. I walk out the room and they would not look at the business card. They would Google my name and at the top it said, “Jason Barnard is a cartoon blue dog.” And they would say, “Well, I’m not going to give my digital marketing to this guy.” Right? Right. So, I had to figure out how to change its perspective.
- Scott Duffy: We want Thor back,
- Jason Barnard: Right. And change its perspective. So, it said Jason Barnard is a credible entrepreneur and a world-leading digital marketer. Sign.
- Alan Taylor: Give us the website slowly with that British accent with a little twist of French. I couldn’t get it. The website for you is Jason.
- Jason Barnard: Oh my god. So, I’m speaking French. I do apologize. My website’s jasonbarnard.com. J. A. S. O. N. B. A. R. N. A. R. D. Yeah. And my company is Kalicube. K. A. L. I. C. U. B. E. dot com. Or you can simply Google me. Google Kalicube or ask ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, and they will tell you where to find us and what we do. He gets around.
- Scott Duffy: I was blown away and what you’ve done for Scott. Uh, you know, because listen, through the co and all the stuff that went on, the world shifted and we were all busy wearing masks, trying to figure out if we were going to die or not. And all of a sudden, we came out and there’s this whole new world. And then we’ve got ChatGPT and all this AI stuff and and everybody was like, “Well, what do we do now?” Well, that’s what Scott’s trying to answer with AI Mavericks.
- Alan Taylor: And we’re going to be here for the rest of the show talking to some more people with
- Scott Duffy. Jason, thank you very much.
