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AI is everywhere right now… and there’s a lot of pressure to implement it fast or risk falling behind.

In this episode, I share how I’m navigating that inside my company: AI agents, content creation, and expanding capacity without losing the human side of the business.

I also talk about why AI can backfire and the 70/30 rule I’m following.

Key Takeaways

• Why I’m blocking AI implementation days
• The most dangerous AI habit for CEOs
• Why I don’t believe AI is going to replace humans (and where it might)
• What it actually takes to build AI into your company (hint: it’s not just tools)

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

You don’t allow AI to think for you. You have to allow enough time and enough space for your own original thoughts. And I think that the creators and CEOs and entrepreneurs who do that are going to have an advantage. It’s how do you increase the speed and the ease in your company without losing your original thoughts? Without losing your creativity, without losing your connection? We can’t lose the connection. If we lose the connection, I think that it will hurt the business in the long run.

So don’t ignore it, but don’t let it overwhelm you and see a lot of it as an experiment. Embodied CEOs don’t chase trends. They pave the way they lead from within. Move by purpose, unshaken by noise. When you are the source, you do not need permission.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having an amazing week. I’m enjoying the spring in Texas. It’s very short-lived. The heat is coming, but I’ve been doing fun things with my kids over the weekend.

Plus they’re in all their spring sports. So a lot of our, a lot of our nights and weekends right now, which I love, are soccer games, t-ball games, jujitsu, my kids do CrossFit. So it feels, it’s just the season of parenting. I am in the, I’m in the big kid phase. And I’ve said this a few times, but I think I am meant for it.

Like everyone tells you, it goes so fast and you’re gonna miss it when they’re young and you’re gonna be so sad. And of course, I miss my kids when they were young. They were so cute, but. I have my freedom back and my kids are so fun, all of them, but my bigger kids who are almost nine and 11 is they’re hilarious.

I can joke around with them, as if they’re my friends. And so it, I just am enjoying it so much and they’re so hilarious. They make me laugh every day and I feel like, I don’t know, I feel like I love the season. I’ll of course miss when they were little. And it does go so fast. But I’m really enjoying this season of motherhood and I think maybe just who I am and how I am built, I’m wired.

I may be better with older kids. anyways, so that is my life right now in season. Right now. I thought in today’s episode I would talk about AI and like behind the scenes of how we’re using it. My thoughts. My current thoughts on it, right? It’s been a little bit since I brought it up on the podcast.

And I know everybody’s talking about it, so I just wanna give like my honest insider on it. I am in no way an AI expert. And to be honest, I think with most people, they feel this way. Like it overwhelms me because it changes so fast right now. And you’ll have something that you’ll start to use or start to master, and then it’s like.

Chat or Claude comes out with this or Google does. And there’s so many tools and so many different things that it is overwhelming. And at the same time, you don’t wanna fall behind. You don’t want to not have it be adapted into your company and used into your company because the reality is everybody’s gonna use it.

And so the faster you can do that, the better. But how do you also do that without losing focus? It’s like. When you’re so busy, it’s hard to hire. Like when your company is so maxed out, it’s hard to hire and train. ’cause hiring and train training takes time. It’s same with ai. It’s like when you’re busy and you have a lot happening, it’s hard to pause and implement AI and there’s a learning curve to it.

And I do think that there is value, like one of my kind of blind spots in the past was I didn’t really wanna learn. A lot of the tools until I got in it and was like, for me to really understand this, I have to learn at least at a high level how to use it. And so I went through like I did a whole vibe coding.

I built our platforms on it and that was all me. And like I learned that way now Claude Code and Claw Bot are two of the things that I think are really worth learning. But what I did was. I hired somebody who can help me while I also learn because I’m like this, it just is so much and I only have so much time to put into this.

And you really need like deep focus work. You almost need a day that’s this is the AI implementation day. So lemme tell you how we’re using it, and how I’m looking at it. So I think. What it boils down to is AI is increased capacity, it’s speed, it’s ease. It’s increasing the capacity that a human is gonna be able to do things because AI is gonna do it for us.

It’s gonna think for us, it’s gonna do the tasks for us, and specifically the agentic ai where you have all these agents doing different things is, in my opinion, 100% the direction we’re going now. Do I think, then there’s the level of is this gonna take everyone’s business and everyone’s job?

I don’t think so. I saw someone make a video the other day that was like, basically humans aren’t gonna have to work. AI’s gonna do everything. Like it’s gonna do all the manual labor, it’s gonna do all the thinking. We’re not gonna have to work. And I’m like, I don’t know. I just don’t see that. I hope not.

I think it’s just gonna become more of like we adapt with it. And I think you’re gonna always, I think you’re gonna always need humans. And I could be wrong. I hope I’m not wrong about that, but I think that you are. The thing with ai, one of the things is it agrees with everything you say.

And so you will need still a human, you could say to ai, chat, Claude, whatever, what do you think of this idea? And they’re gonna say, yeah, that’s great. Or you can say, what do you think about these two ideas? And they’re gonna be like, this one sounds better. But a human would be like, what about this thing that you haven’t even thought about that, or challenge this.

Or challenge that. So there’s just a level of thinking and creativity and authenticity that a human has that I hope is never lost. I’m going to go with it won’t be With that said, as a CEO and. Within my company, I look at AI as how can I create max efficiency so that we can deliver our offers at a good price with the efficiency on the backend.

And the way that I look at this is now like a lot of the agentic ai, so the different things that we are doing from. Prepping for a client’s strategy to delivering the strategy, to tasking the different things out. This is just my business. We have to task out, okay, we have a strategy, now we need copy.

Now we need creative, now we need this. How can we have AI help us do that at a higher volume? And so we could take somebody who may be able to project manage 10 clients and can they manage 25? And how can we have. An agent help us draft email responses and then we go and send them. So all these little things that we do, I think that is definitely the future.

And so what it takes is this is what it takes to build it is you have to be so clear on your. Process and your methods and your, what you’re looking for in order to build the ai. And I think that’s where a lot of companies are getting stuck is they don’t have that clear process. And so it’s hard to build the ai.

So we’ve been working on defining very clearly different guardrails and process and steps and what we want so we can build these different agents. And so the way that I am looking at AI is number one. How can we create max efficiency so that we can deliver products and we can deliver our service at a reasonable price.

So I’m doing done for you at the price of a program because I’m building efficiency internally. And then how can AI get us 70% of the way there and the humans do the last 30%, with marketing, for example, even if we get to a point where AI can launch ads, build funnels with the click of a button, we’re nowhere near that.

Even the launching ads, like I would not trust the claw bot to be able to do that well. When we get to that point that AI could do that, you still need an A human to go in and check it. You still need someone managing the AI agents. So that’s the way I’m looking at it, is like I will still need my team and want my team.

They have to learn how to work with the. AI agents and AI to have the efficiency and the output that will only be acceptable now because of ai. And if you don’t, you’re no longer competitive for me. I use, I’m trying to switch from chat to Claude. Everybody says it’s better. We use Claude for a ton of stuff in the company, but in terms of like my own brainstorming and sometimes copy that I try to create, I’m just so used to chat.

And so it has a lot of my knowledge, but I’m switching to Claude more because I think it is, I think it’s overtaking chat and its power, but I use ai. Really to just try to help me with efficiency, where I think that it’s important to have discipline and that this will become a superpower of CEOs who maintain this is giving yourself space to think what do you really think about something before turning to chat?

Because what I’m noticing is. The moment that somebody has I wonder this, or I wonder that, or What about this? They’re turning to chat and they’re going, let me run this by chat. Or ai, and I think that’s dangerous. I do. I think if someone does that, there’s just no way that you’re getting the power of your own creativity and your own original thoughts out.

Before doing that, after you really flesh that out and sit with it long enough, you can do that. But when it comes to content and when it comes to the vision of your business and that connection to your wisdom, I think it’s very important that CEOs and everyone doesn’t lose that in the laziness that can come from, let me just turn to AI right away.

And making sure that you don’t allow AI to think for you. I think that’s the thing. It can help you think, it can be a, it can be a second brain, but you have to allow the enough time and enough space for your own original thoughts. And I think that the creators and CEOs and entrepreneurs who do that are going to have an advantage.

Because again, especially right now, ai, it does, it’s so obvious, right? It sounds, it. I can predict what it’s gonna say if I ask it. Is this a good idea? It is going to always tell me that’s a good idea. And then it’s gonna say it like this. It’s not about this, it’s about this, and it’s not this way, it’s this way.

That’s how AI talks. And so it’s gonna make everything sound like that. Having times where you are thinking and you are brainstorming and you are imagining and dreaming and questioning and contemplating outside of AI is gonna be really important. And then sure, you can take that to AI to amplify it.

Think of it as that amplifier. And then for a company, how do you create efficiency? I think there’s a line here because I also think that some. People and some companies are gonna swing so far to, I’m gonna use AI for everything, that they’re gonna lose depth and they’re going to lose quality, and they’re going to lose connection and it’s going to hurt them.

I have seen some people get so into ai. And that it becomes a blind spot of like, how fast can they implement something? How efficient can they get it? And they’re not. Questioning, right? I think the questioning piece is really important. You can’t just automatically assume when you go to implement something with AI that it’s good or that it’s better than what you could do.

And you have to really question and think through how you want that experience to be in your company, for your client, for your team, and get AI to amplify that. But don’t lose the human piece. And I do think that the companies who use AI in an appropriate way for efficiency to get you 70% of the way there of something, and the humans do the last 30%, but don’t lose the human connection, are gonna have an advantage because people are going to become starving for, I think, real human connection.

Just like social media makes us starving for in-person and people are starving for that in-person experience that in-person connection because there’s nothing like it. AI is not gonna be able to be the same as a human interaction. And so being, having whatever your business is, if it’s coaching, if it’s some sort of support, if it’s team members supporting clients, you’re still going to need that.

It’s how do you increase the speed and the ease in your company without losing the connection? I think that’s the name of the game. And how do you increase your capacity as a CEO without losing your original thoughts? Without losing your creativity, without losing your connection? The more I’m saying this, the more I’m realizing like.

We can’t lose the connection. If we lose the connection, I think that it will hurt the business and it will in the long run. It may be a short term gain of wow I have all this efficiency and I don’t even need these team members anymore. But if we completely lose the connection, I think in the long term, it will hurt the business.

So as far as, tools that we use, my team uses Claude a lot. Like the agents is what we’re focused on right now. Internally, how do we build agents for different areas of the business so that they can work and support somebody in being able to increase output without sacrificing depth? And that’s gonna be custom to your business.

You gotta look at the operations of your business and how it’s running, and then figure out what would be the most supportive. The other thing I’ve found, because it is so overwhelming, is how can you focus on one thing? I get overwhelmed with AI ’cause I’m like, there’s so many things that we could build and so many things we could do.

And then also I don’t wanna build something and then it changes, then I gotta change it all. So sometimes there’s, there is a benefit of just like waiting for a little bit while things even out like when the CLAW bought, or I think that’s what it’s called. Yeah. Claw Bought came out.

I know that’s gonna drastically change. Over it came out early February. So much is gonna change as it relates to this, but it did dictate this is what the future is. Having this agent, this like assistant that’s like a real person supporting you. So I think focusing on one thing and going, if we automated this, if we massively streamlined this in the business, it would save us this cost or it would increase this result.

It’s the same kind of formula that you follow when you go to hire a team member. You go, what is going to be the biggest impact on the business? What’s gonna either take the most off my plate or it’s something I can’t get to, but it’s gonna grow my business. Okay. That’s where we focus. Same with ai.

’cause you can’t try to build everything. And I find it really overwhelming because I will see people online like Dan Martel, who has. Massive software teams, right? And they’re able to move so fast in all that they implement with ai. And it’s just, I’m just not on that level. And that’s also not my business.

Like I’m not a software tech business. And so I have to look at what is gonna move the needle the most by increasing capacity or being able to do more of something that’s working for us. And then also what is. What are, what can we build for the long term? What can we build that’s not gonna be like a 90 day thing that’s irrelevant in 90 days?

And then I just don’t let it overwhelm me. Then I just trust, like I will figure it out. I will figure it out and I’m moving at the exact pace that I know I should be because there’s so much with AI that I think people make you feel like you’re so behind. I do think we need to face it and we need to lean into it more than just like chatting with chat, right?

You have to build the infrastructure of AI in your business. I do think that is real and you need to put some resources, time, energy and money into that. But it shouldn’t be something that makes you feel like you’re constantly behind. And I do think that’s the vibe with it right now is there’s a lot of you better implement this or you’re gonna be left behind.

You’re gonna be shut down. I saw some. A post that was like, I’m predicting that half the businesses are gonna be outta business by the end of 2026. And I’m like, just shut up. No, that is such is. And then it was of course join my mentorship. So you’re not, I hate that because why push people so hard with the fear?

You don’t know that. You don’t know that half the businesses are gonna be outta business in 2026. Yes. I do think we need to adapt, like I’m saying, and we need to leverage ai. I think it’s just as damaging to make it completely overwhelm and paralyze you out of fear right now to be able to take action.

So don’t ignore it, but don’t let it overwhelm you and see a lot of it as an experiment. If I was, I probably my ideal right now, and I don’t have the capacity of this for this fully with where I’m putting some of my energy, but my ideal would be to either have. A week that I block off and work with my direct reports and say, let’s just focus on AI and we probably will do this, something like this soon, and let’s just build all this out and do nothing else for a week.

Or like a full day every week. That is like my time to really focus on AI to play with it. Because there is this like experimentation and experimentation takes time. So I think if you can have some deep work moments with it, you can learn it and really, experiment with it and see it as that, see it as that experiment and see it as let me figure this out.

Because there’s so many different opinions and so many different experts and so many different platforms and I think it’s more overwhelming than marketing because of that. So that is how I’m looking at it personally within the company. It’s changing at such a rapid pace that it’s like, all right, we’re in for the ride, and I try to get excited about it.

I try to get excited about the capacity that it creates. I know it’s not probably a good thing. I do have concerns for sure about my kids in the future, but I always come back to I can’t control that. So how can I control using it for good? How can I control making sure that I. Leverage it so that I can have the biggest impact for what I’m here to have.

And I believe that I am alive during this time period for a reason. And whatever that timeline is and whatever’s playing out is what’s supposed to happen. And all I can control is my internal state and how I show up. So I try not to worry too much about the future and just know like when it, when we get there.

We will figure it out. That’s my vibe. All right, everybody, hopefully this gave you some thoughts and some ideas. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I will talk to you next week from the new podcast studio.