Howdy, all. Before we get into the meat of today’s blog post, we want to congratulate everyone for standing up to the excessive tipping epidemic. We don’t mean servers, barbers, or food delivery people. Keep tipping them. We’re talking about the obnoxious situations that have crept into existence over the past few years where you see a tip prompt on an iPad after a 15 second interaction with a retail worker.
Americans gave in to pressure-driven tips 6.3 times per month in 2024. That figure has dropped to 4.2 in 2025. That’s what a new study says, anyway. All we can say is bravo (pronounced the way that emphasizes both syllables). There’s still work to do, but we’re moving in the right direction.
The scam we featured in our last blog post (fraudsters demanding money to remove the fake bad reviews they’ve left for businesses) persists. Based on every anecdote we can find, it feels like it’s ramping up. We cannot find any evidence of Google following through, but it actually pledged to fix this problem after some UK government pressure in January. Google’s support forums are still flooded with people posting near-identical complaints about these shakedowns.
We’re watching everything unfold with great interest. We’ll keep you in the loop.
Let’s move on to a cool new tool. We don’t want to let depressing news be the star of today’s post.
Take a look at that picture.
Sike. That’s not a picture. We made it with Google AI Studio. It is exceptionally good at spinning up any “photograph” you can imagine. The trick to getting an output that good is to ask ChatGPT for help.
This was our ChatGPT prompt: please compose a prompt that will get Google AI Studio to generate a photorealistic image for an HVAC business. In particular, the output should feature a technician working on an outdoor Trane unit in the yard of an American suburb. The prompt that ChatGPT came up with is: Generate a highly realistic, professional, real-life style photograph of a residential HVAC installation. The focus should be on an outdoor Trane air conditioning unit placed beside a modern suburban home. The unit should look clean, metallic, and new, with accurate branding visible. A service technician should be present in the image: an American male technician, dressed appropriately in a clean HVAC work uniform (collared shirt with company logo, durable work pants, and protective work boots). He should appear professional and engaged in his work—kneeling or standing beside the unit while inspecting it with tools. The background should include realistic details like a neatly trimmed lawn, concrete pad, siding, and nearby landscaping (such as bushes or flowers). The lighting should be natural daylight, with crisp detail and depth of field similar to a product photography shot used for marketing materials. The final image should look like it was taken by a professional photographer, not like an illustration or rendering. The picture that Google AI Studio came up with is what kicked off this section of the post.
Pretty good, right?
You can do this too. The Google page you need to visit is https://aistudio.google.com/prompts/new_image. The ChatGPT page you need to visit is chatgpt.com.
Google AI Studio’s ability to create lifelike imagery like this is a recent development. You now have access to customizable stock imagery for the cost of a Google Workspace account. Run wild with this. It’s great.
We’re going to get into today’s closing links now. Even though we just talked about the beautiful output you can get when ChatGPT dovetails with Google AI Studio, we’d be remiss if we didn’t bring your attention to Humain Chat. If you’ve been on the fence about using generative AI because you were worried that it may say something that conflicts with your morals, you can now rest easy because Humain Chat adheres to Sharia law. It’s currently only available in Saudi Arabia, but expansion plans are in the works. Next, we’d like to point out one of the ballsiest marketing tactics we’ve seen in some time. There were $100 chicken nuggets available in the concessions section of last week’s U.S. Open. Caviar was one of the dipping sauces. The price is a marketing move by itself. The nuggets sold out. Third, we’ve got a new Ahrefs tool called Brand Radar. It helps brands determine how frequently they’re appearing in the output Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Llama, and other LLMs and claims to help marketers convert their SEO into AEO (answer engine optimization). Finally, there’s How Often to Post on Social Media from Sprout Social. It’s exactly what it sounds like.
Take care!