Tips Tuesday – AI in Ads, AI Entertainment, SEO in 2026 

Tips this week include:

• New YouTube channel launched
• No AI music for me – yet
• Why Coke going AI for Ads is a BIG deal
• AI entertainment is just the pendulum swinging
• The future for Creatives
• DIY SEO in 2026 sneak peek

It’s a slow news week, thankfully, because we could all use one.

Today, I want to share with you the bigger picture of what I see coming with SEO and AI so you can better adjust and prepare too.

All summer I did a deep dive into the state of AI, including the amazing tools that are being incorporated everywhere, and the state of lawsuits, plus where things are headed. 

You’ve heard me talk about how I have changed my business plans accordingly, especially with the new things I’m launching.

Here’s a deeper, behind the scenes look at what’s happening and what has influenced my decisions, plus a peek at what I’ll be teaching in the DIY SEO Everywhere course.

Video Tips

New YouTube Channel Launched

I am delighted to have my new channel live that teaches the complex software I use to make realistic, animated nature scenes!!

I’m starting with a Fundamentals type course that is in a Playlist. It has 11 videos that I have scheduled to publish every other day. So that will take until the end of the month. Doing it this way will show YouTube constant activity. 

That schedule will also give me time to start making Shorts with quick tips which I will release starting in December. There are about 25 of them, so that will be another month of daily releases.

This week I’m creating all of my social accounts for it where I’ll share those short videos too.

I have a reason for not sharing the name and link of the new channel with you. While I know you’re curious and want to support me, I need to grow it organically at the start.

Having a bunch of visitors and/or subscribers right away, especially those who don’t have a history of visiting such channels, might confuse YouTube about the audience demographics and who it should be shown to.

Plus, a lot of folks only watching a few seconds of a video hurts the metrics too.

So, I’m keeping it under wraps for a bit and will share it with you once it gets more established.

I’m keeping very close watch on the metrics and will share those with you later too.

AI Tips

No AI Music for Me – Yet

Y’all know I’ve been creating my own music for my videos on Heartwood Art. And I wanted to do the same for this new channel, but I REALLY struggled with it. I went through my entire back catalogue and everything was either too high energy, too corporate, or too cinematic.

The main demographic for this new channel will be younger men. So I tried to write something in more of the hip hop or lofi genre, which is foreign to me.

I posted on my personal Facebook profile about being bummed out by the struggle and was actually surprised that some folks suggested using AI generated music for it. I was even more surprised at how much they have been playing with it.

But, I don’t want to go that route and here’s why.

I’ve been encouraged by my young cousin, who is in the music biz, to release my back catalogue for sync licensing, mainly for TV, which is how I sold it many years ago too.

So, I’ve been checking deeply into the state of the music biz and how things are tracked and paid and it has changed. Plus, I’ve been keeping tabs on the AI music lawsuits and the major changes that are happening at the highest music industry agencies and firms.

They are seeing the billions of dollars being left on the table over AI training and AI music production and they are VERY quickly taking steps to ensure they are getting their share of it.

The fact is, AI will be fully embraced by the music industry in the very near future. And the major entities will ensure that artists get paid properly because that is how the entities get paid properly.

But, until we know the outcome of the current lawsuits, I cannot risk my videos getting flagged.

So, for now, no AI music generation for me. I’ll use my own creations, thanks.

However, whole new streaming stations are popping up for AI generated music. And I may very well get in on that down the road, as well as sync licensing opportunities.

Coke Going AI for Ads is a BIG Deal

Coca-Cola is legendary for producing heartwarming Christmas ads that are movie quality.

So, everyone was shocked when their first holiday ad of the season was entirely AI Slop.

Of course, that created a lot of buzz for them, which was the whole point.

But, this also sets a precedence – and a big one.

If an entity like Coke, that has an ad budget in the gazillions, turns to radically smaller production AI video for their ads, every ad firm and brand on the planet will feel they have license to do the same.

AI Entertainment is Just the Pendulum Swinging

I’ve been through this type of major upheaval before.

When I first started in the music biz, every producer and firm insisted on human-played instrumentation. 

But, when synthesizers hit the radio airwaves, that all changed. Everybody wanted those novelty sounds. (We can thank the BeeGees for leaving a synth in the recording studio that Gary Numan used on Cars for this phenomenon.)

About a decade later, the pendulum swung back to craving acoustic sounds.

I was fortunate to be able to ride those waves and create whatever sound was vogue at the time, including a blend of acoustic and synth.

Plus, synths, drum machines, and digital recorders created a whole generation of bedroom composers. And then YouTube created a whole generation of bedroom performing artists.

My new YouTube channel is all about teaching folks how to become bedroom film producers. It’s not AI, but it is the new way film scenes are being made. No more big CGI/effects studios needed.

The Future for Creatives

Right now, everybody is caught up in the novelty of AI generation for entertainment. And it will create a whole new generation of creative talent. 

Social media is overloaded with AI.

Every creative tool we use now has AI components.

As a creative person, you can either choose to ride the new wave, get turned under by it, or wait until the tide changes – and it will.

As AI floods every entertainment space, consumers will be dazzled by the novelty, but they will still crave real human connection. 

That is precisely why I showed my face and did an in-person intro for all the videos on my new channel. Those intros are only 5-10 seconds, but it matters.

Find a way, no matter how small, to make a human connection with your audience.

To me, video is the best way to do that. But it is not the only way. Showing your face in an image with text on it works too.

For those who listened to my podcast, you still hear my voice while you’re reading this. And you feel like I’m chatting with only you.

However you choose to do it, the point is – be present in your content.

DIY SEO in 2026

Here’s a peek into just a few of the topics we’ll cover in live workshops for the DIY SEO Everywhere course starting in January.

• User Generated Content 
• Google Search Console changes
• Difference in SEO algorithms and AI models 
• AI SEO for 2026