Transcription
People are using AI in the wrong places. They're trying to start AI businesses when they shouldn't start AI businesses. They should use AI in their business and they're trying to advertise as AI businesses when you should just advertise the thing that your customer cares about, which is how can we use AI to do the things that are the normal functions of the business way better, way faster?
What I'm seeing a lot, especially with founders or people who are starting out, is they're using AI to do a lot of dumb things really fast and they're trying to build companies that the models are going to swallow up pretty much immediately anyway so already have for super users and it's just going to like become easier. And the question that I would ask for the entrepreneurs who are AI maxing right now and again, I think it's very good to adopt new technology, is are you making more money? Just the very simple, are you making more money now?
I had a business I looked at the other day. They had 11 VAs that were doing data cleaning work. VAs? Yeah, virtual assistants. So, low-skilled labor overseas that was doing work and I think it was something in the neighborhood of like $11,000 a month is what they were paying for these 11 VAs. And they were doing a good job and it all worked. They then spent $350,000 to try and create an AI system that would replace what these 11 virtual assistants were doing. But that means they spent three plus years of costs on what these 11 virtual assistants were doing. And it wasn't even the constraint of the business. It was just a process that they could automate, not that they should automate it because it's not the thing that's limiting their growth. And so they still need more customers. That wasn't the limitation. They didn't have enough demand.
People are using AI in the wrong places. They're trying to start AI businesses when they shouldn't start AI businesses. They should use AI in their business. They're trying to advertise as AI businesses when you should just advertise the thing that your customer cares about, which is the solution to their problem, the outcome. None of that's changed, but because you got really excited about it, you think your customers are going to be excited about it. A lot of people are afraid of AI. So it's not necessarily even a positive and it's not making you more money.