AI Sucks. And it's up to us to make it not suck.
Why does it suck?
While there are ethical and environmental debates, I want to talk about how and why AI sucks as it relates to actually using it for the purposes of growing your business.
A world of AI Promises and Letdowns
As end users, we are promised the world in terms of problems it's going to solve, ease of use, and probability of success.
Get more leads. Make better sales calls. Close more deals. Sell more widgets. Spend less money. Do it faster.
Just push this button, and AI fairies will bring you all the success while you sip on lava flows at the beach.
The reality is this: we get the shiny new thing, and while it can deliver on simple tasks like summarizing complex information and brain-dumps, and searching for answers to your questions, it stumbles the second we ask it to be intelligent and create something NEW.
There are three primary reasons for this.
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The data itself. AI needs high-quality, accurate, and diverse data to function well. While the entire scannable internet is certainly diverse, it is far from high-quality or accurate. Sure, there is a lot of good information out there, but there is SO MUCH MORE that is TERRIBLE. And, it seems that we humans have forgotten about this. Do you remember how we used to mock the idea that "if it's on the internet, it must be true?!" What happened to our skepticism? Our very rational, well-earned skepticism.
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Context. What is your North Star? Does ChatGPT know? Every time you log in to a new chat, does it automatically know your idea of success that applies to anything you do? Most entrepreneurs feel their North Star it in their gut as an "internal compass," but have never clearly defined it or written it down. How do you communicate what's in your gut to a machine that requires you to be literal? It also can't tell you how your business operates, what resources you have, your tolerance for risk or pain, where you draw the line, or your vision for the future. And it will never know or remember these things unless you tell it in a way that it never forgets.
- It's not actually intelligent. It does not have human intuition or experience or empathy. It doesn't know the difference between good and bad or right and wrong. And it is incapable of new ideas. It curates information based on what you communicate that you want and what is already known and online (and hopefully true). It is a YES-MAN with zero self-awareness and an infinite supply of information and misinformation to draw from.
AI is being promoted by the "gurus" and product pushers as a lazy, easy way to get a lot done. I have news for you: they're lying to you.
I can prove it ...
Let's say you just jumped on the AI train. Some slick guru sold you on a marketing tool that "does it all" for you. Just push the easy button. Only, what you get out of the tool is generic slop scraped from the internet.
Because you aren’t a trained marketer (this is important), the results might actually look brilliant at first glance. The tool speaks the right language and gets you pumped. But when you try to take those ideas to market, it never really holds that initial optimism for very long. Soon, you realize the strategy is entirely unrealistic for your schedule and skills, or it completely misses the mark with your actual audience. Or it's so AI and generic that it's unpalatable for Google or any human reader.
You're left with useless content and half-completed tasks you don't fully understand, and you've burned time you're in desperately short supply of. (RIP: Afternoon video game time with the teenage kid, survived by another AI rabbithole)
"Why did this happen?" you ask yourself. "I did everything it told me to do!" (as you close the door on your disappointed child)
It happened because the AI tool you're using doesn't know anything about you or your business. It doesn't know YOU. It doesn't care about the cost of your time. It cannot prioritize. It cannot determine what is genuinely a good idea . It doesn’t understand your personal North Star, your Company North Star, or your operational bottlenecks.
Because it doesn't understand, because (I can't say this enough), it's not intelligent!
It is in relentless pursuit of always agreeing with you.
Even in human form, this is not intelligent behavior. This is algorithmic behavior.
When Humans Enter the Chat
The secret to making AI work isn't finding a magical prompt or the shiniest object on the market that will outshine all other shininess for the rest of existence. It's human intelligence, intuition, and context.
This is exactly why our "You + AI" workshop attendees love the AI Marketing Companions we help them build. Before we ever ask an AI tool to write a single word, we focus on extracting human context, shaping it with human experience and intuition,, and documenting it so it is accessible/readable by humans and machines.
It is the bridge between where you are and where you want to be—between your brain and the processing power and functional capabilities of AI.
In the human-only days, this would have been the first step you'd take when working with a new marketer or agency. It's only logical that anybody or anyTHING that's going to create sales and marketing plans and write content for you on behalf of your vision should know what that vision is.
It's also a critical juncture where experienced (human) professionals would help set expectations and educate you about what's possible based on your budget, resources, bandwidth, and capabilities...
The AI promise (slash LIE) is speed. It's a lie because of how much time and mental energy is wasted on it when you're using it for unfamiliar tasks, like marketing. They know their shortcoming is actual intelligence and intuition, so they skip over the important stuff that requires thought and experience... and go right into regurgitating the exact same ideas to you as everybody else... and touting every idea you have as brilliant, regardless of how outrageous it may be.
When humans enter the chat, outrageous ideas get shaped into strategic motions. Living breathing people bring real-life experiences, hold real-world-shaped opinions, and understand the capabilities and constraints of the people doing the work.
Why It All Matters
When you provide AI with a baseline of context, position it as a tool, and position yourself (and the humans you surround yourself with) as the pilots, you will see that it's considerably more effective at helping you grow your business.
Let's start from the top and help you define your North Star metric, so your AI tools have the same compass and measure for success as you do.
