← Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
945: What AI Can’t Replace (And What You Should Automate Anyway)
00:40:33
You'll walk away feeling empowered and clear on how to use AI to save time, spark ideas, and support your business without ever losing what makes your voice special!
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Abigail Pumphrey
AI is built on what's called a large language model, I. E. AI is built on words and so you giving it word based tasks, it's going to perform best in that area until it learns more things. It will eventually be great at all of it. Welcome to the Strategy Hour podcast brought to you by Boss Project on. I'm your host Abigail Pumphrey and I'm dedicated to supporting online businesses. I don't believe in one right way to build a business. I'm here to help you build business your way. One that supports not only the life you have, but the life you want. I'm on a personal mission to help you become financially free. I'm taking all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a seven figure online business. I'm here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way. Whether you're creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business. Settle in. It's time to talk strategy. AI isn't coming someday. AI is already everywhere and it's super powerful. But there are still things that it can't do and there are things you should absolutely let it handle for you. I know AI brings up a lot of things for a lot of different people. Some of you fear is what comes to the surface. You know it's coming, but you don't like what it's doing to media or the way people communicate or the way people write or create. Maybe that really bothers you. Maybe you find it confusing. Like there's so many different platforms, how do you choose which one is going to be helpful? What do you use it for, like what kind of task, all of that. And then some of you are just like tired of the noise because like all anyone's talked about for the last two years has been AI in terms of technology. You're not really hearing about much more technological advances other than that that is everywhere in the media, it is everywhere online. And some people are just kind of tired of it. And I get it, I get it. All of those things are valid. I want to come in though and really point out what makes you unique and what your superpower is and what AI cannot do and compare that to what it should be doing for you. Because in both veins, I want you to be aware of what makes you unique and why AI isn't a threat, while still embracing it. Because I think it's really critically important that business owners learn how to use it and use it consistently, because otherwise you're going to be left in the dust. I know very few people, if any, that I think long term, will survive if they can't keep up with the speed that AI gives people. But who knows? Maybe that's just my own fear talking. Either way, I hope you walk away from today's episode feeling empowered about what makes your story better, what makes your point of view special, and also get some new ideas for ways to utilize AI that maybe you haven't yet at all. Let's start with what AI can't replace. Okay? Because ultimately you're a human and they're a robot. And there is going to be a blurrier and blurrier line over time. There will become a point where you will have a very hard time distinctively telling the difference between what is human made and what is AI made. But in the meantime, these are the things that in this current state, AI cannot do and it will not be able to do. Not to say that it can't fill in the gaps later, which I'll kind of touch on. The first one being your point of view. AI doesn't know your life. It can know things about you, facts about you, maybe some of your accomplishments or where you went to school, or things you wrote about yourself online, because it can search all of that, but it doesn't have your lived experience. Experience your beliefs, your voice, your knowledge, your background. Okay, maybe it has your knowledge, but it doesn't have your background. You were there every single day. AI wasn't watching you. It wasn't cataloging your unique experiences. It wasn't capturing all the moments you felt embarrassed or empowered or proud. None of that was happening. You have that. And as we see more AI created content, people are going to crave more and more things that feel human. And the way you do that is by telling stories, by sharing your experience, by expressing your beliefs and really honing your voice. That's you, buddy. That's your background. That is your superpower. I think it's so easy to downplay what you've been through, especially when you feel like I'm not all that different from this other person that has their own business. You might not be. Your businesses may be very similar. Your products may be very similar. What you sell and how you market may be similar. What differentiates you is your life, where you've been and how you've lived. That is what people are interacting with and ultimately purchasing. People can get knowledge anywhere at this point. The reason people are buying knowledge, buying knowledge, not just acquiring it. The reason people are buying knowledge is because they want access to your lived experience, because you're not going to regurgitate what some marketing book says or whatever that cannot be replaced. So humans are still going to be hired for a while. Okay? So don't worry about that. But if you're being hired for your lived experience, are you sharing that enough? Are you making it clear how that's different from other people? Are you telling your story out loud and it doesn't have to be told in real time? Like, I think about my story and my background, and I, at this point, will fairly often bring up the fact that I've had a traumatic brain injury. And for some people, they're like, why does she say that all the time? But it's a very unique part of my story, and it has attracted a very specific audience of people that have struggled with some sort of chronic illness or, I don't want to say disability, because they're not disabled, but they have had something that required accommodations in the workplace, whether that was ever accommodated or not. Okay, if I kept that part of my story out and I just said, you need accommodations in the workplace, why would people care? Why would that matter? But when I say I didn't, I got to the point where I couldn't sit at my desk because I was so physically uncomfortable. And I worked from bed for almost a year. Well, actually, I worked from a recliner for almost a year. The people that need to hear that are gonna hear that, and they're gonna feel seen and they're gonna feel heard. But if I just said, make your environment work for you, that sounds like butterflies and rainbows. But when I say you can step away when you're depleted, I can't tell you how many times I had to stop at 2 o'clock in the afternoon because I could no longer function. Not because I didn't want to, not because I was burnt out, but because my body was done. That experience will connect you unlike anything else. And so I want you to hone in on what those stories are. You don't have to have them all figured out, but there are a couple of stories that really make a big difference. And if. If you're looking for what those stories are, I've done some really incredible podcast episodes. Hold on, let me see if I can find one for you. Okay. I just went through, like, the last two years of content and couldn't find the episode I was thinking of, which makes me think it's actually part of one of my paid programs. So because of that, the very next episode, I'm going to Be doing it all on the types of stories you need to have in your back pocket about your business. So that's coming. Don't worry. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss that. In that same vein, though, AI can't replace emotional nuance and empathy. Now, if you've been at all trying to use AI as a replacement for a therapist like my husband, which story for another day, AI can sound like it cares. That is true. But it can't actually care. Right. It doesn't have feelings or emotion. It can mimic feelings and emotion, but it doesn't have them. Which is why the nuance of your reaction to certain types of experiences are uniquely yours. What triggers you, what motivates you, what inspires you, what connects you to other people, what makes you feel like them, what makes you feel unlike them, what makes you feel a part of a group, what makes you feel unpart of a group. Like all of those feelings are unique to you. And every single person walking on this planet has their own set of all of those things. And you can utilize that to connect with people on the level that you need to, given whatever situation you're in. And when you can portray that in a genuine way, it feels real. It feels as if it weren't just a mimicked line from a book, but rather something you actually experience and actually feel. People can tell the difference. Side tangent, but relevant tangent. I think it's really interesting. Over the last decade there's been this movement from calling people creatives to calling people creators. And I think it has pros and cons to making this switch. I think calling people creatives implies that they are inherently so and no one can seek to become it. Like you either are it or you're not versus a creator. You can join the club, you can become a part of it, you can decide it's something you want to do. And it's far more action focused. Which at the end of the day, to actually be in business, action is required. And so creators exist to be kind of an alternative business model to some of the other things we're seeing out there now. Can you be a creator and a more traditional business model? For sure. Can you be a creator and something that's been new and online but around for many years? Yeah. No one's saying who gets to be a creator and who doesn't get to be a creator, but how does that relate to what I'm talking about? Ultimately, AI can't replace creative intuition. And I think it would be really easy to assume, much like when we were Talking about creatives 10 years ago, that you either have creative intuition or you don't. Like you are creative or you aren't, which isn't true. You can hone creative intuition. And creative intuition, in my opinion, is a little bit different than intuition on its own. Intuition on its own is kind of that gut reaction, that guttural. I should move towards this. I should go in this direction. I should make this choice. Right. Creative intuition is visionary. Creative intuition is seeing the potential in something that does not yet exist. Right. That's how things are invented. That's how things are designed. That's how things come to be. AI can't predict your creative intuition. Now do I think we'll get to the point where AI can produce its own ideas because it has access to so much information. Yeah, like that's gonna. That's gonna happen. But the silly, crazy, wild hair things that come to you, AI can't predict that. Your weird metaphors, your frameworks, how you see things fitting together, that's you. That's your creative genius. That's your creative intuition. And AI can't replace that. That's why when you look at like a list of AI generated hooks for a piece of content, and you're like, I see all of these, but. And then you have some idea. I'm gonna guess, more often than not, I see all of these, but. And then insert your idea here, your idea will likely outperform all of the ideas that AI came up with. However, AI could have inspired that idea, which is great. Don't take that as a bad thing if it gets you to the point that you are creative faster. Amazing, Amazing. So follow that, lean into that. And when you do decide to work with AI, this is your opportunity to take it up a notch. Because when you're collaborating, which we'll talk about when you're collaborating, you can feed them your point of view. You can talk about the emotional nuance or the empathy you feel or your lived experience and how things are for you and how you want to connect. You can talk about your creative intuition. You can talk about your vision. And it very well may understand your vision before someone else does, because it has access to everything else you've already said to it, which is likely more than you've talked to a lot of people. I'm guessing over the last two years, you've said more to AI than you've probably said to your spouse. I don't know, maybe I'm projecting not to say that's. A bad thing because ultimately what I think people need to understand is AI is ultimately reflecting you back to yourself with the added benefit of access to the Internet, of access to information. So it's your ideas enhanced, your personality amplified, right? And so because of that, what should you be using AI for? And ultimately the answer is the same as it's been the entire time I've been in business. When do you use a system? There's only two answers. When do you use a system? When it's going to save you time or make you money. So when do you use AI? Well, it's a system, so if it's going to save you time or make you money, it's probably a good idea. Now, are there other reasons to use AI? For sure. But most of those end up being personal, which is fine. I know plenty of people who are planning vacations and talking about their health concerns and doing all of these things with AI in their back pocket. But when we're talking about your business, we're talking about helping accelerate what you're already doing, helping you build momentum. Because momentum is the thing you're in charge of, the leverage. You're leveraging your knowledge, your background, your experience. And AI is speeding that up, right? You're smart, you're talented, you've got the vision. So why does running your business still feel so hard? Success isn't about working harder, it's about working smarter. And that's exactly why I created the Co op. Inside, you'll get instant access to 12 plus courses, hundreds of templates and real strategies that actually drive sales without all the trial and error. These are the exact resources I've used to build a seven figure business. So stop spinning your wheels and join me inside. Head to creative templateshop.com membership and make running your business easier today. That's creative templateshop.com membership. Do you really understand your business numbers? 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So I want you to be thinking about what are the things that are draining time from you, especially if you feel like you aren't producing original thoughts when you're doing it. But it ends up being pretty repetitive. If it's repetitive in nature, it's a great opportunity to ask AI for help. So some of the ways you might want to use it and then some of the ways I want you to look forward to using it because those are different. I'd start with a lot of the things that are text based because ultimately AI is built on what's called a large language model. IEAI is built on words. And so you giving it word based tasks, it's going to perform best in that area until it learns more things. It will eventually be great at all of it. But for now I think it is currently performing best in the area of copy. So using it for things like headline variations, maybe you have a piece of content and you're like, something about it isn't quite right. And so you could say, here's the topic, here's my draft even of the entire thing I've already written, come up with 15 punchier headlines that are more SEO friendly, or have this keyword baked in, or are curiosity based. Like you decide what the instructions are and then it's going to come back with some. And it might be 100% there or it might only be 80% there. But even if it's 80% there, it got you 80% of the way in about five seconds. And it might have taken you 10 minutes. Not to say you wouldn't have gotten there, but that time that you're saving, if you repeat that again and again and again and again, it's going to really add up. So I love it for variations on copy that already exist. Not just headlines, but rewriting captions for like a different platform or taking one piece of content and morphing it into another. All of that. Now the irony of all of this, I'm telling you that I would focus on these things first. It's because these are the things I'm personally obsessed with, which is why I'm building my own AI app, my own software, which if you haven't heard me talk about it yet, I haven't talked about it a lot on the podcast. But I'm trying to build this out loud. And what I mean by that is I really want people to come along the journey with me because building software is not a small thing. It takes a lot of time, a lot of attentionality, and there's a lot that goes into it. And I want to give people insight into what that process looks like while it's happening. But my vision is to take these things that you can already use AI for, you can already use AI for and help you get there faster, even faster than you're getting there now. So click Copy AI is currently on a wait list. So if you want to find out more information when it comes out, definitely go to click copy.com or no clickcopy AI and put your name and email in and we'll be in touch as things progress. But my vision is to help you transform one piece of copy into multiple outputs instantly in your voice with the background on your product suite for your ideal audience. And on top of that, store your content. Because so often we are reinventing the wheel and I want you to be able to quickly repurpose things that already exist. Now, beyond that, eventually I want to have IT create things from scratch. But it taking existing pieces of content and transforming them into another are a fantastic place to start. So if you're interested in hearing more about that journey, definitely go to Click Copy AI and I will absolutely keep you posted. Other things you can use AI for include like outlining and summarizing. So like, if you have a topic or idea and you want them to expand or even reduce that content, you can, it can go both directions. And it's also great at simple. I don't just want to say customer support, because simple communication support, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So this could be a text, this could be a dm, this could be an email for anything. It could be following up on a sales pitch. It could be texting your mom about something that you are triggered about and haven't told her. And it needs to be a conversation, all the things, it doesn't matter what it is. You can do things like potentially write out a ranty email that sounds annoyed and still answers somebody's question, and then pop it into AI and say, make me not sound annoyed and keep this fact based and get to the point quickly and organize my thoughts in an order that makes more sense. It'll do it instantly. You can then decide if it's better or if it's not. Most of the time it's going to be at least somewhat better. Not necessarily in every area, but there might be a certain sentence or a certain section that you're like, oh yeah, that's way more clear. Use that. Come back to that. Because that's going to save you time. Because obviously I know you know how to write a friendly email when you're feeling annoyed. I know you know how to do that. But it's a lot easier to write the ranty email when you're feeling frustrated than to write the nice email when you're feeling frustrated. And so it can help reduce ultimately that cognitive load. It's not here to replace you, it's here to help you move forward more quickly, make more decisions faster. The new normal is what I'm going to call hybrid creation. Okay, this is what's coming in hot. This is what people are doing that are being successful with AI. The smartest creators are learning how to collaborate with AI. Not compete with it, not compete with it. It may have good ideas, it may have crap ideas. You get to decide, you get to move forward with it. But if you can start to think of AI as more of your intern or idea bouncer or collaborator or business partner, you're still the creative director, you're still the CEO, you're still making the financial decisions, but it can work for you. Now, what's on the horizon is wild. I am currently a part of ChatGPT's pro level. I think I just went from plus to pro, which is it's the 200amonth one. I get paid nothing for talking about ChatGPT by the way. I also do not have an affiliate. They have no affiliate program, which I honestly feels a little rude to creators, but whatever. Nonetheless, they are developing a new feature, I suppose that does things for you. So previously you had to give AI an input for it to give you an output. Right now it is evolving into and it's not quite there yet. It's still in beta. It'll be rolled out to more people, the better it gets at it. But two things. One, you'll be able to create a bot that can check back in. So that's going to be the first thing. So you will see more people using AI in a coaching type manner. Again, not replacing a human, but in doing some things that are, that are just going to help them stay on track with whatever they want to stay on track with. Great example of this. I heard someone talking about how they have ADHD and they struggle with staying on task at work and often get overwhelmed by their to do list. And so they start every morning with a list of things they need to accomplish that day. And they jump on AI and say, hey, this is everything I need to accomplish today. Help me prioritize it before we start. And then once we get into it, I want you to feed me one task at a time and keep me motivated. Now you're going to have to teach it. What kinds of things actually motivate you? Like, some people like a bit more of an aggressive push. Some people want something really friendly. Some people want to, like, point out why it's obvious that you should be doing this thing. Regardless of how you're going to get there. You can have AI collaborate with you throughout the day and keep you on track. Now, the difference is right now you would have to check back in with it for it to respond. In the very near future, if not even potentially before this episode comes out, you will be able to, and you might already be able to, if you have the right level, give it all the things I just said. But then it would follow back around. So if you, if it said you have 15 minutes to work on this thing, it could check in 15 minutes later, hey, did you do that? Or whatever. Obviously you can get more creative with what that looks like, but you having something that can check back in is unique. The next level of that is it actually being able to do tasks. So right now you can get the output, but you still have to do something with it. Now some of these tools that are using because OpenAI is, it's open source, but you have to pay. You can have access to their API and pay for it appropriately, kind of depending on the kind of app you're building. Regardless, if you're not building an app, then this doesn't necessarily matter. But there's a lot of softwares out there that take OpenAI as like the base model and then they're putting their own intellectual property on top of it and having it do something. So you are seeing AI out there that potentially is already sort of quote unquote, doing things for you because they've added other models to, to it. Like they've added other layers to it. But for example, I was watching this guy who, who had access to like the very first, it might not have even been beta, it might have been alpha. Like it was very early on. And he was like, okay, I want to clean up my website and make it more SEO friendly. Can you analyze my current website from top to bottom? And it went into analyzation mode. Whatever did that went through that process, spit him back out, some concepts, some things he could do to make his website better. And then he was like, okay, great, I want to implement. And then was very specific about what he wanted to implement, whether that was part of it or starting with a specific section or whatever. Then AI can now do the task for you. Like, you can give it access to your Squarespace account and it can log in and click all the buttons and like, make those changes. At this point, you would absolutely have to double check its work because this is totally new, but an interesting kind of evolution into what's next. Now, the part I'm not totally sure on because I haven't fiddled with it quite yet. I'm unclear as to whether it takes over your mouse essentially and is clicking as if you were yourself on your computer and then I. E. Tying up your computer. It's told me that's not how it works and that it could be working independently, which if it does that, that would be a game changer. If it's taking over your computer, then yes, you could walk away. But, like, is it really saving you time? Sort of. Right. Or you'd end up needing multiple devices and building your own farm of devices, which they want to control that over time, they want you to pay for access. Right now that's going to work best for super repetitive tasks. But I do think it'll get to the point, not yet, but in the near future where when you have a customer service request, like, I know some of you on big accounts like Amazon or whatever, you're not talking to a person almost ever. Right. But for smaller businesses, if you email them, nine times out of 10, they're responding. It doesn't whether it's the founder or like an employee of their team. Smaller businesses are still handling all of their customer service. It will get to the point where AI is sophisticated enough and it can know all of your content. It can know where all of your content lives. It could know your catalog, how much things cost, the kinds of things you've been posting lately. And when someone emails, in theory, it could respond for you in your voice, providing your resources, your links, your paid products, whatever. Are we there right now? No. Do I think we can get there in the next couple of years? Yeah. Like, this is happening so fast. I do think in some cases this is potentially a threat to people acting as virtual assistants. Like, unless they have like a super specialty task, if it's repetitive in nature and can be taught, then there is risk that it could be outsourced. Now if the task itself requires creativity or critical thinking, it can do some of that. But like it's not going to replace graphic designers anytime soon. It's not going to replace website designers anytime soon. Copywriters, Is it competing with copywriters? For sure. But I think what's really going to happen is copywriters are going to get better, faster, whatever, using AI tools. But people still need to hire copywriters, right? I think the same will be true with virtual assistants. You'll probably just see more specialized assistants in the future rather than such general task based people. The real edge that people are going to get in business by working with AI is going to come with their ability to personalize it, to make it feel as close to human as possible and or like edit the human back into it. It's going to be about positioning and resonance and your ability to connect. Like all of those things still have to be true. But you can partner with, utilize, be a collaborator. I really like using collaborator as the thought, being the collaborator with AI and not compete with it. And it can move your business forward in a really big way. AI can make you faster, but only you can make your work matter. I want to help make more of your work matter by helping you with the strategy and that's what I'm doing inside of this business with my courses. You can definitely find out more@bossproject.com courses. I would love to help walk you through what some of that strategy looks like. But in the very near future I'd love to also help you with some of those repetitive natured tasks and help you more quickly without spending nearly as much time training. Get to the point that you can produce quality outputs in your voice for your audience instantly. If you want to find out more about it, go to click Copy AI Join the Waitlist. I would love to continue to keep you updated on what it's been like to build software from the ground up and take you on this journey with me. If you have still been resistant or nervous about using AI and you're not sure where to start, really focus on places you can save time, not make decisions. You making the decisions will help you feel more in control. Obviously letting go of that control will make you feel more vulnerable. So starting with something that is ultimately simple, great. What are the things that are low lift, like don't take a lot from you, but like are sucking the time, right? Those are the things you start with. Now I want to hear more about the creative ways in which you are using AI behind the scenes. So definitely send me a DM over at Abigail says. I would love to know what you're working on, what you're testing, what you would hope to see as part of Click Copy. AI would love to get your input. As always, you can find my profile by going to Boss Project on Instagram and clicking at Abigail says in the bio and you'll be taken over there. Now next time as promised, I will be diving into storytelling more specifically and really talking about the stories you having in your back pocket that are gonna help make your marketing easier, faster, better convert higher. But probably not today cause I'm about to lose my voice. Hey, a few quick favors before you leave. I'd love if you'd share today's episode, send it to a friend who needs to hear it and post on social. You can show us where you're listening from, your favorite takeaway or why someone else should listen. Be sure to tag me, Abigail says and ossproject so we can share it. Okay? Second favor to get podcast updates and all the behind the scenes news from bossproject. I'd love if you'd join my VIP list. Just head to bossproject.com signup to make sure I have all your contact details. Really love this show. It would mean so much to me if you'd leave a rating and review. It not only helps more listeners find the show, but allows us to bring on quality sponsors so we can keep bringing you this valuable content for free. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.