AI Changed SEO Forever (Here’s What Working Now) FT. Matt Wills AI Creative Expert

Should you buy a prompt pack? Matt Wills says no, because the best prompter of AI is AI itself. 🤖

At the Phuket summit, I sat down with Matt Wills, AI creative expert and founder of the AI consultancy Quietly Smart, for Inside A Hustler’s Brain. 🧠

Matt doesn’t sugarcoat things. We talked about AI and jobs, his Claude Code workflow, how he assesses clients, and some deep personal questions. 🔥

📊 In this episode, we unpacked:

• 🌏 From New Zealand to Japan to Bangkok
• 📈 Why Matt got obsessed with AI
• 💼 Will AI take human jobs?
• 🛠️ His AI tools and prompting method
• 🧭 How he assesses a client’s AI readiness
• 🔁 No-code, low-code, and the two-AI code check
• 🎨 Why design and video still need humans
• 💬 Regrets, advice, and his “f*** you money” number

🎥 Watch the full episode:

🌏 From New Zealand to Japan to Bangkok

Matt is from New Zealand and has lived more than half his life in Asia: Japan, China, Cambodia, and now Thailand. He’s also lived in Germany, America, Australia, and England. 🌍

He moved to Thailand when the DTV visa opened in 2024, which made it easier for digital nomads like him. Bangkok has “so much opportunity, so much potential.” 🇹🇭

He loves the “assumed respect” between people in Asia: “do whatever you want, just don’t mess up what I’m doing.” He finds Western, especially English-speaking, countries “a little bit overbearing sometimes.”

📈 Why Matt Got Obsessed With AI

Matt got obsessed with AI when ChatGPT came out. It wasn’t because ChatGPT was great yet, but because of the promise: the exponential curve he could see unfolding. “It’s actually super exponential.” 🚀

At the end of 2024, after about a year and a half of using AI, he felt it was finally good enough to be meaningfully used in business. That’s when he started Quietly Smart. Since then he’s seen more step changes, most noticeably in December with Claude 4.6 and ChatGPT 5.4. ⚡

💼 Will AI Take Human Jobs?

With big companies like Oracle and Amazon doing massive layoffs, I asked Matt for his honest view. “I don’t like to sugarcoat this.” 🧐

In the near term, people will be augmented by AI, and it will help them 10x or 100x their productivity. In the long term, when we get to AGI or ASI that’s better than us at everything, “then we’re kind of in trouble.” ⚠️

That’s why he says now is “the perfect opportunity, or almost a kind of imperative” to start learning AI, using it, and getting good at it. Most people are still at “the ChatGPT level,” using it just as a chatbot. The real advantage comes from external tools and things like vibe coding. 💡

For another view on AI and careers, read how Kulwant Nagi rebuilt his life with AI. 🔗

🛠️ His AI Tools and Prompting Method

“Since December, my life lives now in Claude Code.” Before that, he used ChatGPT as a central hub for prompting other tools. 🧰

A technique he teaches is to always ask for clarifying questions. Get ChatGPT to ask you questions to clarify your goal, then have it create a prompt or a PRD (product requirement document) to feed into another tool. 📝

Image generation is a simple example. Instead of typing a short description into Nano Banana, he’s taught ChatGPT (in its permanent memory) a structure for image prompts: context, focus, subject, background, typography, lighting, and more. You can even use a JSON schema for more control. 🎨

That’s also why he jokes in his talks that people shouldn’t buy prompt packs: “Guess who the best prompter of AI is? AI.” 😄

For more on getting results from ChatGPT, read Amit Tiwari’s ChatGPT hack. 🔗

🧭 How He Assesses a Client’s AI Readiness

Many business owners are overwhelmed by the hype and don’t know where to start, so Matt does that work for them. He watches 1–2 hours of AI update videos a day and then tests the tools himself. 📺

His tool recommendations depend on the client, their business, and their industry. But his general rule is to use AI every day. You’ll get comfortable, learn its limitations, and get in the habit of asking AI whenever you have a problem. Then explore tools relevant to your industry. For design, he currently points people to Nano Banana 2. 🖼️

Being an AI consultant isn’t just about prompts, he says. It’s about understanding how models work, knowing the range of tools and their limits, and communicating that clearly. 🎯

🔁 No-Code, Low-Code and the Two-AI Code Check

Highly technical clients usually don’t need him, so no-code and low-code is generally his starting point. “The AI does all of the coding for you.” 💻

You do need basic concepts like deployment and hosting, but “you can learn that stuff in a month.” Then the coding can be done iteratively with Claude Code. 📚

His pro tip is to get another LLM to check the code:

• 🧑‍💻 Build it in Claude Code
• 🔍 Point ChatGPT Codex at the same repo and ask it to find bugs, logical inconsistencies, and user experience problems
• 🔧 Take that feedback back to Claude Code: “Codex found a bunch of problems, you’ve got to fix these”

🎨 Why Design and Video Still Need Humans

Matt thinks STEM topics will essentially be solved within about five years, and coding is almost there. Design is harder because of subjectivity and taste. 🎭

Image generators make beautiful images and infographics, but you still need a human to check that the result matches what you had in mind and isn’t off-brand. AI doesn’t yet have that intuitive understanding. 👁️

The biggest gap is video. There’s been huge progress with models like Veo 3, but precise control over timing and shot framing “just does not exist in video yet,” even on the best agentic video platforms. 🎬

💬 Regrets, Advice and His “F*** You Money” Number

We ended with some personal questions, and Matt gave very honest answers. 💛

• 🗾 Biggest regret: He lived in Japan for 13 years but let his visa lapse on a trip to Thailand. That ruled out Japanese citizenship, which he’d love to have.
• ⏳ 24 hours left: Call everybody and tell them he loves them.
• 🏆 Best advice: From his mentor, the former head of sales for Disney in China: under-promise and over-deliver, and be transparent about what you can and can’t do.
• 💸 Missing advice: No one taught him how to manage money, like saving 10 cents of every dollar. He only learned how money compounds in his 30s.
• 💰 “F*** you money”: $2 million is his minimum, enough to live comfortably off the returns. Real “f*** off money” is $10 million.

📝 Key Takeaways From the Matt Wills Interview

• 🤖 Let AI write your prompts, so skip the prompt packs
• ❓ Ask the AI to ask you clarifying questions, then turn the answers into a PRD
• 🔁 Have a second AI review code built by the first
• 📅 Use AI every day to learn its limits
• 💼 AI will augment people now, so start learning it today
• 🎨 Design and video still need human taste
• 🤝 Under-promise, over-deliver, and be transparent

❓ FAQs About Matt Wills

Who is Matt Wills?

Matt Wills is an AI creative expert from New Zealand, based in Bangkok, and the founder of the AI consultancy Quietly Smart.

What AI tools does Matt Wills use?

Mostly Claude Code since December, along with ChatGPT for prompting and Codex for code review. He recommends Nano Banana 2 for images.

Does Matt Wills recommend buying prompt packs?

No. He says the best prompter of AI is AI, so ask the AI to write your prompts.

Will AI take human jobs?

Matt says AI will augment people and boost productivity in the short term, but AGI or ASI could be a real problem in the long term. That’s why he says now is the time to learn AI.

🎙️ More Inside A Hustler’s Brain Interviews You’ll Love

• Matthew Woodward Live Interview At AWA Asia Bangkok About SEO
• The ₹35 Lakh/month AI strategy — is it real? AI Make Money Online Podcast With Jitendra Vaswani
• Liam Quirk on NEW Rules of ChatGPT SEO 💰 Why SEO Is Bigger Than Google Now
• AI Automation Hacks From WordPress.com : Are You Ready? ft. Ronnie Burt

If Matt’s honest take on AI helped you, share it with a friend who’s still at “the ChatGPT level.” 💬

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