We’re at a pivotal moment in history. AI is here, and how we choose to use it is going to define the future of creativity, business, and even how we work as humans.
I keep coming back to this idea: we’re standing at a fork in the road.
One path—what I hope will be the road more traveled—is using AI to enhance us, to make us better, sharper, more creative, more efficient. The other? It’s the easy way out. The shortcut. The cash grab. It’s the mindset of using AI to replace effort rather than enhance it.
I genuinely believe that intention is everything.
AI as a Tool vs. AI as a Crutch
AI has the potential to help us work smarter. It can summarize our thoughts, help us organize ideas, and make our work more streamlined. It can take something messy—like this brain dump I’m dictating right now—and shape it into something digestible and valuable.
But the moment we start using AI as the work itself, rather than as a tool to assist, we’re in trouble. People can sense when something feels generic and inauthentic. The more we rely on AI to create for us rather than with us, the more we strip the humanity out of what we’re putting into the world.
If you look at AI like an employee, what role are you hiring it for? Is it an assistant helping you refine your work, or is it making all the decisions for you?
AI should be the tool, not the artist.
Giving AI a Scope of Work
Think about how we use email. Email’s job is to send messages from Point A to Point B. It doesn’t write our emails for us (well, not unless we let it). It doesn’t decide what we should say or who we should say it to.
AI needs the same boundaries. It’s not here to think for us. It’s here to help us think better.
So what if we treated AI the way we treat hiring? What if we actually created a scope of work for it?
If AI were an employee, what would its job description be?
What decisions should be left to you as the human?
What level of responsibility does it have? Is it entry-level (helping with menial tasks)? Is it a middle manager (helping organize and summarize information)? Or are we mistakenly putting it in a leadership role where it’s making the big creative calls?
Small businesses, especially, need to be intentional here. If you’re running a lean team, AI can support your work—but it shouldn’t replace the work that actually requires creativity, strategy, and emotional intelligence.
Outsourcing the Right Things to AI
Here’s the beauty of using AI correctly: it frees up resources for the work that actually matters.
If AI can help streamline data, generate reports, or assist in organizing information, that means you have more time, money, and brainpower to invest in the human side of your business.
You can afford to hire better designers to make visuals that truly resonate.
You can put more resources into your product, whether that’s improving quality or making it more accessible.
You can expand your size range, create better photography, or invest in a team that brings fresh, human creativity to your brand.
But if you’re using AI as a way to cut costs at the expense of human creativity, you’re making a short-term decision with long-term consequences.
The Long-Term Play: Intention Matters
At the end of the day, AI is neither good nor bad. It’s a tool. It’s all about how we use it.
If your goal is to use AI so you can fire someone and save money, I think that’s a mistake. Not just ethically—but strategically. I think it will hurt businesses in ways we can’t even fully grasp yet.
But if your goal is to use AI to make your business stronger, your creativity sharper, and your life more balanced—then we’re onto something.
That’s the difference. That’s the fork in the road. Which one are you taking?
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