How I think about using AI in my business

The end of Friday’s call turned into a conversation about how I’m using AI in my business now. I want to write it down properly, because I don’t want it to sound like I’m handing my business off to AI and letting it do whatever it wants. I’m not. I’m really cautious and careful about it.

I’ve been an early adopter of AI for a long time, and I know this is the future of how we live and work. So the question for me is, how do we find a place for it? How do we use the technology in the way it ought to be used, while keeping space for our humanity?

Use it well or use it poorly

People are using these tools anyway. You could use them really well, or you could use them poorly. I want us to be masters at this, so we know when to use it and when not to.

That means looking at everything: the security, the humanity, the productivity. Weighing what makes the most sense, so that me and my human team are augmented and leveraged, and our clients get the best value.

Why I went down this road

In order for me to function the way I want to function in my business, I need 10 people on my team, and I’d probably need to pay them $60,000 to $80,000 a year each. Do I have $600,000 to $800,000 in payroll? No. Nor do I think that ever needs to happen.

So what are my options? Never achieve what I’m trying to achieve? Take out a giant loan and hope for the best? Or explore the thing that’s staring us in the face, which is AI.

Now I understand what I’ve always wanted to be able to do with delegation: be the founder who leads and makes smart decisions, creative decisions, and isn’t burdened by how it all happens.

Everything still comes through me

I’m the one talking to the client. I don’t have AI going back and forth chatting with clients. Everything goes through me, and there are a lot of decisions I make. It’s not like stuff is happening that I don’t know about.

And I want to own it. I don’t want a tool that says, we’ll handle it in the cloud and figure it all out for you, you don’t need to set up any rules. I set the rules. If I decide tomorrow to switch to a different AI, or pull it offline entirely and do it the old-fashioned way with people, I can.

It gets better the same way a team does. If you had a project manager, a developer and a designer, and they overstepped or did something weird, you’d say, quick meeting, I didn’t like that, we can’t do that anymore. They go, got it. And everybody’s better next week. It’s the same thing.

Room to be human

I no longer feel like I have to be a computer in my mind. I can be creative. I can explore creative ideas.

If you reserve blocks of time now where you can be human, you can talk to your clients without having to worry about notes or what it all means. You can sketch and draw your creative concepts. You can map out your funnels on pencil and paper. You can write, knowing your best work comes from a human experience.

And then you can use computers that understand what you want to develop it and leverage you. I think that’s incredibly wonderful.

It’s changed what I can say yes to. When a client has a request, I can say, I’ve got an idea, let me explore that and get back to you.

This came out of a Build with Brad call.