June 26, 2025 | 08:45 pm PT
Phoebe Gates, the youngest daughter of Bill Gates, has revealed that she and co-founder Sophia Kianni use ChatGPT to refine their marketing strategies for their fashion-tech startup, Phia.
“I use AI almost every single day, and it supercharges me,” Phoebe said on the latest episode of “The Burnouts” podcast which she and Sophia co-hosted.
The pair analyzed viral content, breaking down its elements in an Excel sheet to understand why it performed well. “Then we’ll reverse engineer how to make that video,” the 22-year-old explained. This method extended to their own founder videos, modeled after successful viral content, as reported by Business Insider.
Bill Gates and daughter Phoebe Gates. Photo courtesy of Phoebe’s Instagram
Sophia, 23, the youngest U.N. climate advisor in U.S. history, further detailed how they used ChatGPT in their process. After transcribing popular videos, she asked the AI to adapt the transcript into a description for Phia’s brand.
“I turned that transcript into, like, I wrote a description of Phia, then I put that into ChatGPT, and I asked it, ‘Can you turn this script into one that works for Phia?'” she said.
Understanding the patterns behind viral content is key, the co-founders emphasized. “You should not be starting anything from scratch. The internet exists for a reason,” Sophia said.
Launched in April, Phia is a platform that uses AI to compare clothing prices across 40,000 websites, helping users find the best deals, according to People.
In the debut episode of “The Burnouts,” Phoebe also shared her father’s opposition to her decision to drop out of college to start a business.
Phoebe graduated early from Stanford University before co-founding Phia, doing so without any financial backing from her billionaire parents, Bill and Melinda French Gates. Bill later said in an interview with The New York Times that he was glad that Phoebe did not seek his financial support for her startup.