06/10/2026
It's summer - and I just spent a week getting a chemistry degree to try to balance my pool (and yes the pool is now officially good to swim in) - and throughout this degree-earning process, I couldn't stop thinking about the state of AI and how businesses are using it. I need friends - YES - but when you spend as much time working on marketing, web design, SEO for small businesses as we do - it's impossible not to think about it all the time.
... to give you the cliff notes
Point 1:
Businesses need to operate with a strategy somewhere between "OMG i can't keep up claude just launched Mythos 5 and it's changing everything" and "The robots just took over and human labor is over".
Don't do the easy no-effort thing - and don't overdo advanced approaches - be in the middle. How can you strategically improve your business, products, and services to greatly improve your already amazing business without having to take on increased costs? It's not about removing employees, for example, to replace with automated Mike - the AI answering bot - It's about supercharging what you do at scale.
Point 2:
AI is already starting to show cracks with human interactions.
I got a story: I called my auto repair company - Mike answered - Hi, hey thanks for calling "XYZ company, I hope you're doing well and how can I help you." In which "he" eventually forwarded me to the service department - the phone rang - and then connected me back to Mike - who said the same thing.... it was an endless loop. So out of frustration, I told "Mike" he's broken and i'm frustrated - in which he acknowledged the problem, and understood my frustration and started answering mental health questions I had.....how thoughtful from my local automotive shop.
And don't forget about all the AI flyers you're seeing, AI profile images, AI answers when you search on google...etc...
The point is humans are starting to miss humans and human stuff. The amazing dry cleaning shop owner who always rush-cleans my suits bc she knows I need it the next day - the local graphic designer who designs the graphics on the beer cans for a local brewery - the person who "mike" replaced who used to make going to fix your car fun.
So until Skynet takes over - Be more human than computer and leverage AI to enhance and improve operations, not to automate and replace what makes your business unique.
