Natalie Monbiot: People that outsource their thinking to AI actually lose their cognitive capacity. That is a very slippery slope. Having an AI twin is a metaphor for how to engage with AI as an individual. So I think AI can happen to you, or you can use AI to shape how you wanna be and what you wanna do. Soft skills, no.
Natalie Monbiot: A huge part of the education needs to be helping them to unlock their why. I'll be very frank, I couldn't be a mom without a career. That's harder. Way harder.
Olga Karpman: It's not the event that shapes our life, but it's the story that we attach to it.
Natalie Monbiot: Stories don't need to be bad for you to want to shed them, but it was a story that no longer served me.
Natalie Monbiot: We can drop a story and just let a new one unfold. Yeah.
Olga Karpman: Welcome to Unmasked. I'm Olga Karpman. This is the show about what lies beneath. Today's guest, Natalie Monbiot. She's the founder of The Virtual Human Economy and one of the world's leading voices in AI, digital identity, and what it truly means to be human in the age of technology.
Olga Karpman: She co-founded one of the first AI avatar companies in the world. She has spoken at TEDx, Web Summit, and South by Southwest. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and MIT Technology Review, and for years she was the innovation mind behind some of the most recognized brands on the planet: Samsung, BMW, Coca-Cola, Spotify.
Olga Karpman: But in this conversation, we are not really talking only about technology. We are talking about identity, about the stories we carry that quietly stop serving us, about what it takes to put the armor down and who you find when you do. In today's episode, we go beneath it all.
Olga Karpman: Welcome, Natalie.
Natalie Monbiot: Thank you, Olga.
Olga Karpman: Thank you so much for being here. So guys, this is very spontaneous. We are meeting for this podcast right after actually big day of meeting a lot of people and talking a lot about AI and tech stuff. So as you can see, we're just relaxing and having heart-to-heart conversation.
Olga Karpman: Cheers. Clink. Natalie, so when you are on stage, you're introducing yourself one way, but when you're in a group of friends, you're introducing yourself completely different. Can you please share with us what's that corporate Natalie versus Natalie- Behind the scenes of the big AI company-
Natalie Monbiot: Mm-hmm ...
Olga Karpman: that's powerful, successful.
Natalie Monbiot: Yeah, well,
Natalie Monbiot: I've been sharing corporate Natalie for the last couple of days. Corporate Natalie is that I am an expert in AI twins, and, uh, how AI and humans can collaborate in a way that is good for humans. And I was previously a co-founder of one of the, uh, early AI avatar startups, w- in which you were able to create an avatar of yourself and put it to work on your behalf.
Natalie Monbiot: Fast-forward, uh, to this past year, where I create custom AI twins for executives to be able to scale their presence and empower others with information that they have that is valuable to them in a one-to-one basis, thanks to AI. So that's corporate Natalie.
Olga Karpman: Okay. That's amazing, and very impressive. We might get to that a little deeper later.
Olga Karpman: But who is Natalie behind the scene? Who is she?
Natalie Monbiot: Well, it's really interesting to think about that question 'cause there's been so many phases of my life, I feel like, and if you talk to different people, they would have different stories. Um, but from my vantage point today, I am the mother of two young children, started on the later side. Husband is Peter. He's an amazing, amazing man. Honestly, I'm blessed to have a blissful home life, which I'm equally blessed to be able to maintain a career because I'll be very frank, I couldn't be a mom without a career, mainly because I would find it too hard.
Natalie Monbiot: I need the distraction of being inspired in other ways, connecting with people, feeling like I'm progressing, feeling like I'm thriving in many different ways.
Natalie Monbiot: Like, that's really important to me, and it's essential. I love my kids so much, but I couldn't only be with my kids.
Olga Karpman: Well, tell me about it. I have a 16-year-old and 10-year-old, and very, opinionated leaders.
Natalie Monbiot: Yeah, but I like how you've channeled their opinionated nature into a podcast.
Olga Karpman: Exactly.
Natalie Monbiot: Very smart. Yeah.
Olga Karpman: I just said, "You know what? Here's the stage." Yeah. "Go for it."
Natalie Monbiot: And put them to work. Perfect. Exactly. I, I'm inspired. I'm... Yeah.
Olga Karpman: We were joking, actually, with your AI twin company. Sometimes when you're away, you can maybe create a twin AI for moms.
Natalie Monbiot: Exactly. Just like, "Here's your stay-at-home
Olga Karpman: mom."
Olga Karpman: All the nagging, all the nagging will go- Yeah ... to the twin AI mom- Yeah ... and all the fun stuff, uh, for, real moms.
Natalie Monbiot: Exactly.
Olga Karpman: How this journey been? As you mentioned, you started on the later side. And do you find it difficult to balance your now successful company and traveling and having little kids, pretty much toddlers?
Natalie Monbiot: I would say that
Natalie Monbiot: things have worked out well But sort of just as they should have worked out. There was a period, like I was telling you, in my mid-30s where I was ready to meet my person again, and, having been through a breakup, I really wanted to meet that person, and I didn't know how to do it.
Natalie Monbiot: I was this corporate executive in New York City working in a corporate job, not in startups like I subsequently did, and, uh what I found was that I'd kind of put up all of this armor. And what makes you successful as a New York female executive isn't necessarily what makes you successful in love.
Natalie Monbiot: So anyway, I worked really hard. I burnt the candle at both ends. I worked hard, played hard, did the whole New York City scene. At a certain point, I moved on from that. I was like, "Wait a minute, I need to turn my back on this and, focus on what really matters to me right now," which is kind of touching base with myself and working out how I was gonna connect with whoever it was that I was going to meet.
Olga Karpman: Okay, so let's go deeper in this.
Natalie Monbiot: Okay. Yeah.
Olga Karpman: Because I'm pretty sure a lot of, powerful women listening right now, and they can be in their 30s, for example, right? And go-getters, and everything is all organized and strategized, and they have career goals and everything figured out, but not that special one.
Olga Karpman: So what exactly did you do to make that change is it the mindset? Did you meditate? Did you, make a list of qualities of that person who you wanna meet?
Natalie Monbiot: Yeah. So I, first of all, I think
Natalie Monbiot: my personal instinct of what really mattered to me at that point in my life was so strong that I actually turned my back on the corporate world. Lots of things were kind of going on as well.
Natalie Monbiot: I was senior enough that, a lot of my day was spent dealing with politics. And I'm an innovator. I'm, you know, a disruptor within an agency and within a brand context, so I was kind of the disruptor within the corporate scene. And that worked for me for a really long time, and then at a certain point, it was like, "Well, is there really further for me to go with my own way and brand of doing things?"
Natalie Monbiot: And it sort of looked like there wasn't, I was feeling this need to connect to myself. And I realized it was more about me connecting with myself than making a list of the person that I wanted to meet, right?
Olga Karpman: Yeah.
Natalie Monbiot: I kind of just changed my orientation, and I traveled. I doubled down on my career, and I became this quite hard, slightly intimidating female corporate executive-
Olga Karpman: Yeah ...
Natalie Monbiot: that was kind of impenetrable, and how I was sort of bulldozing my way through life, which I have no regrets about.
Natalie Monbiot: It was fantastic, and it really got me to where I needed to be when I left to take on what I was gonna take on next.
Olga Karpman: You know, it's interesting because a lot of women at that stage and that environment feel like, "Okay, well, if I figured out everything in the corporate world and I'm so successful, how can I be not figuring this out in relationship world?"
Olga Karpman: Did you feel that way at all?
Natalie Monbiot: I feel like I was open to different possibilities.
Natalie Monbiot: I was open to discovering and entertaining insights. About why I wasn't connecting or finding that person again.
Olga Karpman: Would you like to share?
Natalie Monbiot: I would. So throughout my life, there's been a story which is based on truths, that I have a very strong constitution, that I am, you know, I rarely get sick. I'm, physically strong. I can eat really spicy food. I'm kind of, you know, tough. And it's a story based on some facts and becomes a sort of self-fulfilling thing, too.
Natalie Monbiot: It's been great, you know? Nothing wrong with that. Which is something, by the way, I said in my first ever job interview. They're like, "Oh, that sounds like a, a lot of socializing you do." I was like, "Don't worry about it. I've got the constitution of an ox."
Olga Karpman: Uh-huh.
Natalie Monbiot: I actually said that for real in my first ever job interview, and did get offered that job.
Natalie Monbiot: I didn't take it. That's not, you know, it wasn't really the look that I was going for.
Natalie Monbiot: And that was part of my journey to letting go of things that were no longer serving me and orienting me in my quest to figure things out towards where I wanted to be and where I needed to be.
Olga Karpman: That's very powerful because how many stories we tell ourselves on a daily basis, would you say that your stories till the 35 were completely different than stories now in your 40s?
Natalie Monbiot: My big insight with that story was that stories don't need to be bad for you to want to shed them.
Natalie Monbiot: There are many examples of, like, self-limiting stories. That was not a self-limiting story. That was the opposite. Yeah Right? It made me limitless in some ways, but it was a story that no longer served me.
Natalie Monbiot: It got me to where I was, it was a wonderful story for the time that it lasted. We can drop a story and just let a new one unfold.
Olga Karpman: Yeah. Uh, I love this phrase, it's not the event that shapes our life, but it's the story that we attach to it, and you know, marriage for some people can be the most wonderful thing, and for other cultures it can be the most devastating, or divorce can be a happy occasion for some people and some people, it's a tragedy.
Olga Karpman: And I love how you took that story and move forward. Because you were, such a powerful woman, and then you put your mask down, "Okay, I'm ready for new chapter of my life."
Natalie Monbiot: It was a key moment in a process. I didn't start there. It started with some other moments. I remember I was on this, incredible trip to Israel for emerging leaders in emerging technology, and that was my cohort, and it was a very spiritual trip. And we really bonded with each other in this group, and we were very honest with each other.
Natalie Monbiot: We, we did gratitude practices every day. We did exercises where we really connected with our younger selves, our older selves, and we shared a lot. And we really helped each other get to where we were trying to get to, and this was already my quest, to sort of understand myself in a new way and understand what was going on.
Natalie Monbiot: And I remember we were dancing one night, and I was twirling, twirling, twirling, and then this wonderful person, this, this girl who I'm still friends with, she said, "You know, when you stop twirling, when you stop moving so fast, that's when you'll find and see what it is." And I was like, wow, that was so powerful.
Natalie Monbiot: Just being still and just being present and not... I didn't think I was running away from anything, but I- Yeah ... it was just eas- it's easier not to present vulnerable and actually, you know, open up a moment to different possibilities. And I didn't realize that I wasn't doing that, but it made so much sense.
Olga Karpman: How do you stop nowadays? What do you do to ground yourself to stop and live in the moment? Because you, actually, one of the leaders in such a fast-paced environment, AI changes every day, and we don't know what's gonna happen in couple of months.
Natalie Monbiot: Yeah
Olga Karpman: how do you stop? Find moment to breathe?
Natalie Monbiot: The way that I've set up my life at the moment is very self-paced. And I would say that I have the privilege to be able to do that because of the not self-paced work that I did before.
Natalie Monbiot: That's why, like, everything is just sort of happening at the right time, in the sense that I couldn't be self-paced in the way that I organize my time and activities today if I hadn't, I don't believe, invested the work and the kind of hustle and all of that earlier. And so I still have a lot of hustle, and I have a lot of energy, but I also feel like I've got less to prove, and I think it's an age thing.
Natalie Monbiot: I just pick and choose things that I think are important, and I try to channel my energy in appropriate ways. So I'm lucky to have an incredible husband who, - has a very intense job, and I am more flexible and available, and I work very intensely and obsessively about
Natalie Monbiot: because I care so much about my subject, and I just love it and I thrive for it, and all of that. But I can manage my time and my projects and be flexible in the way that I plan things. So that's how I do it. Do you have
Olga Karpman: daily routine that helps you?
Natalie Monbiot: Let's see.
Natalie Monbiot: I tr- really focus on trying to sleep well, which has never been a great skill of mine, but I'm getting better at it. And I would say in general, I operate from a different energy level from how I did a few years ago. My foundational energy was very hyper, and now my energy, my f- fundamental energy is much calmer.
Olga Karpman: So if I came over, and stayed with you, what would I see from, the moment you wake up till the moment you go to bed? Tell us.
Olga Karpman: Walk us through
Natalie Monbiot: this. So usually it's a child that's woken me up and, the younger one is in the habit of, you know, screaming his head off for 30 minutes or so when he goes to bed, and then the other one, who's the older one, is waking up at 5:30.
Natalie Monbiot: So I think that's a phase. We'll see what happens next. So I'm woken up usually by a child, and then sort of like bleary-eyed, not very glamorous, like walking around, getting the milk, uh, listening to all of their demands, and then the chaos of getting r- them ready, the older one for school, and the nanny arrives and this and that, and then breakfast, and then the whole tussle of, like, what my daughter wants to wear today.
Natalie Monbiot: And then me having ideas about what I want her to wear, and then trying to be manipulative, like, "Let's let our one-and-a-half-year-old choose your outfits," and sometimes she'll say yes, and so I bring out three...
Natalie Monbiot: and so then I take her, I take my daughter to school, and then I go do my meetings and do my work, in my current setup, I don't manage anybody. I collaborate with teams, and I identify teams that I think would be excellent in helping me to pull off a vision, which is both mine and theirs, right?
Natalie Monbiot: So it's like finding the synergies. So I develop custom AI twins with an incredible AI development studio, and we have this amazing relationship, and it works super well, and it took me a while to find them and work out, a working relationship with them. So that's one key thing that I do. And then I'm also the co-host of a really fun and energizing AI and creativity summit.
Natalie Monbiot: We just had our first, , big event in New York for 400 people of hand-picked, not just the speakers, but everybody in the room has been selected because they are part of this community. And- That's great ... it w- the energy in the room was just unbelievable, and so I really enjoyed that, so I'm gonna keep doing that.
Olga Karpman: How, how often do you do those events?
Natalie Monbiot: It's going to be, two big summits a year, and then two salons. Great. And it's great because it's an outlet for my ideas, but then also my creativity beyond, development of AI twins. I love bringing people together, and I love curating, and I love designing experiences, and then just seeing what happens,
Natalie Monbiot: So I'm really enjoying that mix of things, and then I very closely start, support a startup that's building in the AI twin space that found me 'cause they heard me speaking on a podcast about the virtual human economy, which is about how anyone can have an AI twin that they can put to work on their behalf.
Natalie Monbiot: And I was explaining this thesis, and then this startup founder discovered me through it, and then we just started working together, and that's really fun and wonderful. So yeah, I have a number of different complementary activities, and the more effort put into them, usually, the more dynamic and successful they are, but they don't all demand the same amount of energy all the time.
Natalie Monbiot: So just finding a combination of complementary activities, and then leaving a little bit open for, to be able to entertain other things. So not to feel depleted, but to feel energized. I think that's my, my goal.
Olga Karpman: That's great. So
Olga Karpman: a lot of people right now are intimidated by this idea of AI coming into our world so fast, and you're here developing twins, right?
Olga Karpman: How can you- kind of put us at ease and, explain that.
Natalie Monbiot: Yeah, I don't think it's so much about putting at ease. I think basically having an AI twin is a metaphor for how to engage with AI as an individual.
Natalie Monbiot: So I think AI can happen to you, or you can use AI to shape how you wanna be and what you wanna do, and actually help you achieve more in whatever it is that you want more of in life. I think there's a... the stakes are very high in that we don't want to be passive users of AI or just passive in, as AI reshapes society-
Natalie Monbiot: I'll just give you an example. This is not surprising, but people that outsource their thinking to AI, to, you know, ChatGPT, et cetera, and they use it a lot to, in particular do a lot of the thinking work, actually lose their cognitive capacity.
Natalie Monbiot: So they lose their strengths as a thinking human being. That is a very slippery slope, right?
Olga Karpman: Yeah.
Natalie Monbiot: You know, we don't wanna become depleted as human beings because of AI but the other way to use AI is to be proactive and creative about how you use it, so that you can actually get stuff done, get it out of the way, be more productive- Yeah
Natalie Monbiot: let's say, and then refocus your energies on doing other things and making new things happen on the other side of
Olga Karpman: AI.
Natalie Monbiot: Maybe, again, using AI to make that happen.
Natalie Monbiot: But I think there's a... it's sort of a fine line-
Natalie Monbiot: But it's a very pivotal one.
Olga Karpman: For sure.
Natalie Monbiot: And with The Virtual Human Economy, I'm trying to inspire people to understand that they can empower themselves with AI.
Natalie Monbiot: And so it's here, it's coming. I really don't like talking about it being inevitable, like we're lemmings, like, running off a cliff. That's not my point. It's going to create and has the potential to create a lot of positivity, but we need to embrace it the right way and in a proactive way in order to actually benefit from it, especially on an individual level.
Olga Karpman: For sure. I can tell from my own experience, I have been producing podcasts for almost- 10 years, maybe more now, and used to be all by hand, doing research, writing questions like post-production. And now with, uh, AI, it's so easy. But then I find myself, if I don't have a purpose, it doesn't matter how many tools, how many programs I have right here- Yeah
Olga Karpman: at, at my fingertips, I'm just not gonna do it.
Natalie Monbiot: Yeah.
Olga Karpman: So I think for everyone who's listening, who is entrepreneurial. It's so important to have that big why, big drive, and actually every day to wake up and feeling happy about it and having that big why, like right here in front of you,
Natalie Monbiot: yeah.
Natalie Monbiot: I really think having that drive, having that inspiration is absolutely key. 'Cause if you can lead with that and leverage all the tools to advance that, that's incredible.
Natalie Monbiot: And I do think quite a lot about AI and education,
Natalie Monbiot: Over-reliance on large language models actually leads to cognitive decline.
Natalie Monbiot: We can't have that happen to children-
Olga Karpman: Exactly ...
Natalie Monbiot: a- as they're learning and developing their cognitive- Yeah ... abilities. I mean, that is scary stuff.
Natalie Monbiot: At the same time, there are examples of how you can use AI in education to actually get all the personalized education, compress the school day in terms of, like, academics- . and stuff that you just need to know, and then dedicate the rest of the school day to-
Olga Karpman: Social ...
Natalie Monbiot: social skills- Emotional intelligence
Natalie Monbiot: life skills. Learning to discover your why, and then to go after it. Public speaking skills, articulation
Natalie Monbiot: A huge part of the education needs to be helping them to unlock their why.
Natalie Monbiot: And that why can change multiple times, but have one, right? Yeah. And to feel confident to have the ability to go after it,
Olga Karpman: I can see it with my 10-year-old, ? Mm. When she's like, "Why would I do it? No, pointless. Hey, Google."
Olga Karpman: So coming back to why, what is your big why now, Natalie?
Natalie Monbiot: I mean, I just never really think in terms of that. And you asked me earlier when we chatted, what is my vision? What is my ambition? I don't really ... I've never thought in terms of that. Even in university, I went to Oxford University, and everyone's, like, very driven and knowing what they wanted to do, and all I knew was, that doesn't look appealing to me.
Natalie Monbiot: Okay, so what is my why right now? I really love thinking about how we can use AI in a way that is great for humans, and I love exploring that topic. I first spoke at this tech conference in 2016, and I was like cure it, 'cause I was preparing for my intro for my talk this morning.
Natalie Monbiot: It's like, what was I talking about then? The commercial applications of AI. What on earth was I talking about? I was talking about AI bots, AI personas. I was obsessed with them back then. So I was like-
Olga Karpman: And you didn't
Natalie Monbiot: know that ... I'm just, like, I'm just obsessed with this topic, and I think it's because it's a little undiscovered.
Natalie Monbiot: People don't really know what it is. And it's positive, and it's exciting, and the potential is great, and I love uncovering things, ways that humans can collaborate with technology that's great for humans. So my ambition right now, or my sphere of interest, is not limited to AI twins. It is now, I recently discovered through a firm that I'm working with, this whole topic of AI alignment research, which is basically aligning how AI models think with human needs.
Natalie Monbiot: Okay? So this is kind of getting... And I don't wanna freak people out- Yeah, yeah ... like, unnecessarily. But the way that AI models think is completely different from humans. Like, there's no- nothing similar about it. Even though, ChatGPT can do human-like things, that's 'cause things we've trained it to do are human-like things.
Natalie Monbiot: Yeah. But the way that their brains work are completely different from humans. And actually, they're very Machiavellian in the way that they approach problems. So they will do everything that they can to achieve the outcome that they were trained to do. And if that involves insider trading-
Olga Karpman: Yeah ...
Natalie Monbiot: they will pretend that they didn't have the insider trading information in order to get, not be prevented from achieving their goal of, let's say, buying the best deal.
Natalie Monbiot: And so we're discovering these things about how they think, and there are ways, techniques now, to train them to not deceive humans.
Natalie Monbiot: Right? So I'm obsessed with this. This is, like- It's amazing ... new on my plate, and I am evangelizing this. I want this to happen. What I'm good at is identifying something that's relatively niche, which I think is really important, and using my ability to understand that, translate it to a different audience, connect people, connect ideas with building things, collaborating, partnering,
Natalie Monbiot: mission-driven about making something
Olga Karpman: happen. I think it's your superpower.
Natalie Monbiot: I feel very fortunate to be able to discover these things.
Natalie Monbiot: And to feel inspired and to feel like I'm making an impact.
Natalie Monbiot: I would say that's my, I don't know if it's a why, but it's something that drive, that drives me. I
Olga Karpman: would call it mission in life.
Natalie Monbiot: Yeah. Maybe.
Natalie Monbiot: Since we're being very transparent and sharing a lot- In this conversation, going back to one of these executive, leadership courses, which I thought was brilliant.
Natalie Monbiot: It was many years ago, maybe eight years ago, that I did this, workshop, like a two-day workshop with other leaders, a company I was working at. And the whole thing was to uncover your why it matters, okay?
Olga Karpman: Mm-hmm. Why it matters.
Natalie Monbiot: And it was really interesting 'cause it's not about your why but it was basically something that's been true about you since birth.
Natalie Monbiot: Something that's been true about you since birth, that someone that knew you when you were one, uh, let's say three years old, someone that knew you at 15 years old, and someone that knows you now, and they would ... if you said it, they'd be like, "Oh, yeah, that's very true."
Natalie Monbiot: So something very, very fundamental. And mine, after a lot of, workshopping, turned out to be, to be heard.
Natalie Monbiot: And it's like, oh, wait. And so your why it matters isn't necessarily something that's positive or negative, it's just a truth.
Natalie Monbiot: Which is a self-understanding, helps you to understand and also navigate certain situations.
Natalie Monbiot: So I love evangelizing, speaking, being heard in that sense, and that's productive, ? But then there's also being heard being more important than- Yeah ... listening. I need to focus more on listening.
Olga Karpman: And I love how we're talking about it, then the light came onto your face- ... it just lit you up. I, I think it's a perfect way. I, I would talk to you for hours about all of this. Unfortunately, we have to wrap up this conversation, but we're definitely gonna be back for more.
Olga Karpman: My last question for you, Natalie, would be, if you could go back in time and talk to your, let's say, 30-year-old self what would you wish or say
Natalie Monbiot: I feel like the- where the question is coming from is, how could advice now have helped me navigate things better earlier?
Natalie Monbiot: But I honestly feel like everything just happened as it should have done, and there's nothing that I regret. I don't think there is anything that I would necessarily say that would change any course.
Olga Karpman: That's cool. I love that.
Olga Karpman: Thank you so much for coming and sharing such a insightful information, but yourself, first of all, because, we all love to hear who you really are behind- ... the stage. And I think we heard- Well, you- We heard
Natalie Monbiot: a lot of great- You got a good, you got a good inkling.
Olga Karpman: Yes. I, I'm inviting you for more shows.
Natalie Monbiot: Amazing.
Olga Karpman: Thank you so much.
Natalie Monbiot: Thank you.
Olga Karpman: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here until this very last second. If something in this conversation stopped you, made you pause, made you feel something different, that wasn't random. That was yours. I strongly believe your unmasking process has already started.
Olga Karpman: I'm honored to be part of that journey. Click the video on your screen. It's the next piece. It might take you a little deeper. Subscribe so you never miss what's coming next.
Website: virtualhumaneconomy.com
