I've been watching the AI automation space pretty closely over the last year and I've stayed away from it mainly because I feel like I've seen this movie before. After mentoring hundreds of small businesses through SCORE, in my digital marketing agencies and in my corporate digital career, and growing my own audiences and communities, I've started to notice patterns in what makes businesses actually sustainable. Here's the thing about most "AI automation agencies" right now: they're selling boxes connected by arrows. Zapier workflows. n8n nodes. Make scenarios. API wiring. Clients pay because it used to take someone who knew code to do that wiring, and that person was expensive. But here's what's happening. Claude Code and Cursor can now build those exact workflows from a single prompt (I'm actually doing that, not just saying that I'm doing it). Not just the individual nodes. The whole thing. End to end. Error handling. Iterations. The works. So let me ask you something. When the AI can generate the same workflow in minutes that you used to charge a premium for, what exactly are you selling? This is the buzzsaw. The core product of most automation agencies is becoming fast, cheap, and increasingly self-serve. The thin wrapper around the tools is getting thinner every month. Naval Ravikant talks about leverage. Real leverage comes from something that can't be easily replicated. If your only moat is knowing how to connect two tools together, you've got a structural problem. The tools are getting smarter. You're not. If your leverage is the wiring, the tools are just gonna flat out eat your lunch. If your leverage is the model - the way someone thinks, decides, teaches, sells - you can swap tools as they improve and keep your value. The agencies that survive won't be the ones wiring boxes. They'll be the ones teaching clients how to think about their business in a way that the tools can't teach. Everything else is just a commodity waiting to be automated away.

A friend of mine @Tommy Gan recently raised some REALLY important questions about the use of AI. A recent Adobe Creators' Toolkit Survey showed that 86% of global content creators (16K sample size) are using some form of AI in their content creation workflows. It's my personal belief that those other 14% might not be telling the truth about using these tools, but that’s a topic for another conversation 😉 Here’s what he asked: "If I put things in to train the AI to be putting out content that isn't really me, will my audience think this is disingenuous? And if I disclose it, will it put them off?" He went further - he's started unfollowing creators he's followed for years (Anik Singal) because they're openly talking about AI clones. He notices himself skimming past posts that feel AI-written. YouTube shorts and reels that look or feel AI-generated get an instant scroll-past. And he asked the question that actually matters: "Is this really a viable path, and will there be longevity in it?" These are VERY serious questions for content creators because he's not wrong ... about most of it. ----------------------------------------------------- Most AI Content IS Garbage. Tommy's Right. 💯 The reason people scroll past AI content is because most of it deserves to be scrolled past. Same generic phrases. Same safe structures. Same "In today's fast-paced world..." energy. It's AI writing as AI. No wonder people tune out. I tune out too. 👉🙄👈 So when he says "putting out content that isn't really me" - I hear him, loud and clear. That IS what happens with most AI tools. You give GPT a topic, it writes something in GPT's voice, and you slap your name on it. Your audience can smell it. 👃 You can smell it. 😷 Everyone can smell it. 🫢 That's the problem I set out to solve with SelfScale ----------------------------------------------------- The Difference Between a Clone 🤖 and a Mirror🪞 Tommy mentioned unfollowing people who are openly talking about creating AI clones. I get it. A clone replaces the creator. It produces content the creator never actually thought, from perspectives they don't hold, using examples they don't have. That feels disingenuous because it IS disingenuous.

Here’s the raw truth: I got swept up in the promise of effortless 'scaling.' ⚖️ Feed AI my ideas, let it churn out posts - more content, less sweat, bigger audience, right? 🫂 It felt like freedom. But then I looked at the moments that actually mattered - the DMs that said, “This hit me exactly when I needed it,” the conversations that kept going for days, the quiet nods of “I feel seen.” None of them came from polished, optimized, AI-first content. ZERO. They came from all of those uncomfortable, unfiltered, messy places: - My failures ALWAYS land heavier than any of those polished wins. - The questions I'm still wrestling with always spark deeper replies than my tidy little responses. - The posts I almost deleted out of that hesitating fear are ALWAYS the ones that resonate most. The real temptation wasn’t gaining efficiency. It was outsourcing my own authenticity - handing over the messy, human core of my voice because I was scared the “real me” wasn’t enough on its own. That fear wears a clever disguise 🥸: productivity hacks, viral templates, endless automation, less work? But connection doesn’t scale through shortcuts ✂️ Connection scales through clarity - knowing exactly who you are, how you sound, how you think out loud, what only YOU can say 💪 AI isn’t here to replace your voice. But it can amplify it IF you use it correctly. A truly powerful shift happens when you flip the script: 1. Identify your voice first - Capture what makes you distinct: your cadence, your humor (or lack of it), your obsessions, the way you curse when you’re passionate, the stories only you carry. Write it raw. Speak it into memos. Let it be unmistakably yours. 2. Use AI to deepen and curate, not invent - Feed it your real thoughts, your drafts, your voice samples. Let it surface sharper hooks, tighter structures, proven patterns that make your ideas travel farther - but always in your tone, never in some generic ChatGPT bullshit polish. 3. Amplify to connect - Turn that lever to reach more people without diluting what’s true. Your perspective stays the irreplaceable core; AI becomes the megaphone that carries it to ears that need to hear it.

Here's the simple cold-blooded truth - KINGS DON'T STAY IN POWER WITHOUT QUEENS. If "content is king," why are so many kings broke AF, burned out, and being parade-waved to death? It's because, I believe, the power behind the throne was never the content itself. It’s the actual connection that content creates. You can have the best ideas, the sharpest hooks, the cleanest edits - and still get CRUSHED by a creator with weaker content who has a stronger bond and stronger connective tissue with their audience. In other words: the king gets the credit, but the queen MOVES THE BOARD. The King (Content): Visible Power Think of content as traditionally masculine power in the creator game. It’s OBVIOUS: views, clicks, virality, polish. It leads with DEMONSTRATION: "Look at me / Look how good / smart / successful I am." It’s about TAKING territory: more reach, more followers, more attention. This is why so many creators obsess over tactics, scripts, and formats. They’re trying to build a bigger crown. But here’s the paradox: the more you chase attention as an end goal, the less trustworthy you feel AND become. The king gets louder and more demanding ... but the people quietly stop listening and start turning to look the other way. The Queen (Connection): Invisible Power Connection maps to traditionally feminine power: It’s subtle: trust, safety, resonance, belonging. It leads with invitation: "Come sit with me, girl; let’s figure this shit out together." It’s about depth, not just breadth: fewer people, MUCH MUCH stronger bonds. Connection shows up in: 1) How often you tell the truth when it makes you look less impressive. 2) Whether your audience feels seen by your stories. 3) How you respond when people push back, question you, or share their own experience. The queen’s power is that she can make or break the king without ever raising her voice. Try and tell me I'm wrong. (I'll fight you about it) I'm just sayin' that's been both my personal as well as my professional experience.

Most AI content tools solve the wrong problem. They make you faster at sounding generic. You 10x your output and lose the one thing that made people follow you in the first place — you. I've been obsessing over this for months. Not "how do we make AI write faster." But how do we make AI write something that makes you stop and go: "Holy shit. That's me." Not "sounds like me." Not "close enough." Not "good enough with a few edits." I mean the weird pauses you leave in. The way you start sentences with "Look." The fact that you always end with a question instead of a statement. The thing you do where you get vulnerable for exactly one line and then pull back. That stuff. The stuff you don't even know you do. Here's what I've learned: Voice isn't vocabulary. It's not tone. It's not "casual" or "professional" on a slider. Voice is pattern. It's rhythm. It's the specific way you think out loud. And if you can capture that - actually capture it - then speed isn't the enemy of authenticity anymore. They stop being a tradeoff. You don't have to choose between "real but slow" and "fast but hollow." The creators who figure this out first won't just save time. They'll be everywhere - and sound more like themselves in 50 posts than most people do in 5. The content game isn't changing because of AI. It's changing because of AI that finally understands the difference between your words and your voice. What would you do with 10x the output if none of it cost you your authenticity?