→ 3 days to become the CEO your business needs, with a fully-built marketing plan custom to YOU. Sign up for Embodied Marketing LIVE: https://get.embodiedmarketing.com/live

The AI conversation is becoming extremely black and white… and I don’t agree with either side.

In this episode, I break down my thoughts on Russell Brunson firing his copywriting team, the moral obligation conversation around AI, and why I think businesses that learn to integrate AI will have the biggest advantage over the next few years.

I also share how I’m personally approaching AI as a CEO, where I think entrepreneurs are getting distracted, and what actually moves the needle inside your business right now.

Key Takeaways

• Why AI vs. humans misses the point
• How AI is making you lose money
• Why I’m looking to hire MORE 

 __________________________________

More ways Embodied Marketing can support you:

Turn your expertise into consistent revenue. Funnels, strategy, launches—everything done for YOU. Apply here: https://get.embodiedmarketing.com/app

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW THE PODCAST!

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of the Embodied Podcast! If this podcast has added value and helped you in your business journey, please head over to Apple Podcast, subscribe to the show, and leave us an honest review.

Your reviews and feedback will not only help us continue to deliver great, helpful content, but it will also help us reach even more amazing entrepreneurs just like you.

♥ LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

We are in a massive realignment and adjustment period as a society because of AI, and it is moving so fast. I saw a post that said he fired his entire copywriting team, like $650,000 of salaries and fired his whole team. It’s not like it’s either AI or it’s humans. It’s an integration. That’s where we’re at.

That is the future. So instead of this black or white, let’s replace people with it, it is how are we integrating people with AI to ultimately create more output? The people who have challenged themselves to integrate with AI are 10 times more valuable to me than the people who haven’t

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. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having a great start to your week. I am. I’m having a great start because we have furniture coming in here and got built this weekend. I’m gonna be adding a bookshelf here, but it’s just such a process getting everything, buying it, building it, getting it in the space.

But before recording this, I went through… I have all these boxes from different live events, and like swag that you just accumulate, and like supplies and stuff, and it was in all these boxes in here, and it was really bothering me. The vibe was not how I want it. So I just got to go through all those, unpack them in a cabinet I got, and it’s looking really good in here.

I think that I’m gonna be, maybe in the near future, opening up some opportunities to actually do in-person VIP days with me here, because I have this vision and this dream of either you fly in, you and your team, or maybe you live, close enough to Austin or in Austin, and we sit down and audit everything, and then actually make changes and implement, and maybe even record videos and create some content, and have my team a part of it, where we audit your website, all…

any of your ads you’re running, your social, your messaging, your offer, your entire strategy. We create the next six-month marketing plan for you, and in a single day, have all that ready, and even implement some of it, record some ad videos, record some content, work on your messaging, all in a day together here.

That’s my vision. So I’ll probably be opening up a few spots for that in the near future ’cause I’m ready for it. And I think there’s just so much power in that, so much power in a focused day like that to get just you out of the day-to-day and just get months of work done in a day. So that’s my vision.

All right. Today, I wanted to do a brain dump. Not a brain dump, but there’s a couple topics I wanna talk about, and they weren’t an episode all on their own. The first one I wanted to address is I saw last week that Russell Brunson, so if you know him, most do, but he’s founder of ClickFunnels big internet marketer, definitely one of the originals when it comes to the weekly webinar and webinars.

And, I was in Russell’s mastermind maybe, eight years ago. And I would say, if I’m being transparent, I don’t align with a lot of the ClickFunnels, crowd. And even then in the mastermind, it was great and great people, but I think there was like a split that happened. And you have the marketers who love marketing, and then you have the marketers who also care about delivering a quality product, and like heart-centered and real relationships.

So anyways that’s not what this is about. But I saw that he did a post that said he fired his entire copywriting team like $650,000 of salaries and fired his whole team. And, then I saw some responses to it. Of course, it triggered some people, and I wanted to talk about it ’cause I have some thoughts that aren’t like on the black or white side.

And also I think at the end of the day, it was a post to get attention. I think that was the purpose behind it, and it worked. But I saw some follow-up responses that were like, “If you are willing to fire your entire copywriting team, then that tells me that you are– y- you would see me as a customer, as just a number, and so therefore I wouldn’t wanna work with your company,” and da.

And I don’t personally feel that way. I think that there’s this almost like morality thing with AI, which I understand, of like I want to make sure people still have a job and so therefore I’m gonna support companies who are still offering a job. Here’s my probably unpopular opinion with some people.

I don’t think that it is anyone’s m- moral obligation to protect people from keeping their job. I have a friend who I love, and he was like, “I will never ride in one of those Waymos,” which are the driverless cars, “because I wanna make sure that the people driving for Uber still get paid.” Okay, here’s my unpopular opinion.

society’s gonna change. Society’s gonna evolve. Technology’s gonna evolve. It is each person’s individual responsibility to maintain a valuable source and contributing source of society. It’s not other people’s job to make sure we protect those people. Now, is AI gonna cause a lot of problems with a lot of jobs?

Yes, I do think that. And I think that the answer to that, though, is not let’s keep paying companies who don’t innovate and don’t… we’re gonna be forced as business owners to become extremely efficient and operate with very slim teams. I think in Russell’s post he put like, “We’re competing with…”

He might have put billion-dollar companies that have just a few employees, and I don’t know if that’s actually true, but that piece of it is a valid point. Now, firing your entire copywriting team is stupid. There is no way That AI is going to be able to fully replace copywriters. I don’t think ever.

Now, if you are a copywriter or you are someone in any role right now, or you’re looking at your employees and you’re leading them through this, the most valuable people are the ones who have not said, “I’m better than AI, and so therefore it will never replace me,” but have learned how to work with AI.

So I can tell you from my perspective as somebody who hires, if I hire a copywriting role, if I hire a funnel tech role, if I hire anybody, and they come to me and they say, “I know how to use Claude to make myself more efficient to do this job. I know how to build funnels using Claude code, and I can build three times the amount of funnels keeping the quality in the same time someone could do it at one time,” you are instantly 10 times more valuable than other people.

Instantly. So to me, it is not about, oh, let’s not support companies who are making decisions to replace people with AI. I think it’s not about replacement. It’s not a black and white, like it’s either AI or it’s humans. It’s an integration. That’s where we’re at, is AI is having to integrate with humans, and companies are having to integrate AI with their team.

When I look at my company right now, I don’t look at it and say, “How can I replace my current employees?” at all, and that is an honest statement. I look at it and say, “How can we take what we’re doing right now with our existing ch- team and create more output using AI?” But we still need the humans. And if you look at copywriting specifically, there’s no way that 100% AI written copy is going to be very good.

Maybe one day, maybe, but you’re still gonna need a human to feed it the messaging and the depth and the emotion and the ideas, and then review it. So AI should be able to get copy, like if you feed it enough, let’s say 70, 80% of the way there. You still need a human. Now, I would bet that Russell’s doing that.

Like I think he said, “Fired my whole team,” and it was to get attention, because who’s feeding the AI? Him? Like things aren’t going well if that is the case. so the response that I saw was like- How this was inhumane or whatever by some people. Then you got the flip side who probably feel the pressure of “Oh, do I need to do that?

Do I need to have no copywriters, or do I…” Whatever role. It’s like I see this with ads too. I see this with with ads managers. “Oh, we’re gonna have… AI is just gonna run the ads.” I can tell you right now, if you went in Ads Manager and had no human, and you just let AI set it up, your ads would be a nightmare.

Like it is nowhere near ready for that. And in fact, a lot of the AI settings in Ads Manager that they leave toggled on audience expansion and those things actually get worse results. So maybe one day we’ll be there, but you still need a human managing the AI. That is the future. So instead of this black or white, let’s replace people with it, it is how are we integrating people with AI to ultimately create more output?

That is what AI is doing. It’s like it’s creating more efficiency and more output. And as a CEO, as a company, that is your job. You have to be able to figure that out to stay competitive. So the people who are like, “Oh, Russell’s doing this, and that means that I would just be a number as a customer for him,” I also think that’s inaccurate.

I think probably, again, he’s, he made that statement for attention and to make a bold statement that got attention. But I think that the reason that you go against that is not by saying, “Oh, that’s, poor leadership.” To me, the only reason it would be poor leadership is I don’t think it’s strategic to look at it that black and white.

I would look at it and say, “How do we produce more output with our copy while maintaining or improving the quality with humans using AI?” That’s it. So when you’re looking at your business right now, and I have talked about AI on here, but I wanted to address this because I think people are s- again, seeing it as this black and white like replacement.

And to me, it’s an integration, and it’s how do we integrate AI into the business? And if you are a human being, providing value, whether you are with clie- you have clients, you have customers, or you’re actually an employee or a contractor, I can promise you, as someone who hires dozens of people every year, the people who have challenged themselves to integrate with AI are 10 times more valuable to me than the people who haven’t, and that is what we’re gonna see.

We’re gonna see the people who are accepting it and challenging themselves and integrating with AI flourish, and the ones who haven’t get left behind. And I hate that like You’re gonna be left behind language. I really do because I think that is also it- it’s everywhere. I saw this joke of a reel that was like, “Every meeting every meeting today in 2026,” and then it had all these clips of AI, and it’s so true.

But it is true because that is where we’re at. In a massive realignment and adjustment period as a society because of AI, and it is moving so fast. And a lot of like big players talk about the universal income and are we gonna have this like base income where everybody gets that, and, AI does all the work, and then you don’t have to work.

But if you wanna make more, then you can use AI to make more. I could see that play out. I don’t know how exactly it’s gonna play out. But the entrepreneurs aren’t gonna sit there and accept a universal base income. I’m definitely not, right? So how do I still provide value using AI? I also was talking to a friend this weekend who has some really big connections and he asked like a big guy in the AI space like what…

who’s gonna come out on top on this? And he said the answer was they’re gonna make AI and the use of it so expensive the tokens and actually using it, they’re gonna make it so expensive so only people with resources are gonna actually be able to use it, so AKA companies and entrepreneurs, right?

Which I could see that playing out. Regardless, this is not about what’s happening with AI. I think you should see it as an integration, but I wanna talk about this because I also see that it is insanely distracting right now. It is like the biggest shiny object syndrome that I see, and there’s validity to it because we do need to embrace it.

We can’t ignore it, and we can’t just be like, “We’ll be fine without it.” Like I f- I feel the pressure of integrating with AI, and I feel behind. I constantly do feel behind because here’s the reality. It’s like you have this company to run that has day-to-day operations happening, that it takes an investment of time and energy and resources to implement AI to maybe save time down the line, and it’s moving at such a fast pace that you don’t know if you invest this, is that really where you’re gonna save the time?

And so I’m seeing all these people who use Claude Code and Vibe Coding, and they’re like building all these things. And my question is, cool, like it’s cool, but is that actually gonna make you more money? I think it was Dan Martell put on his Instagram story l- a couple weeks ago, and he’s “The only people winning are-” ChatGPT and Claude Code with all the usage of AI.

You guys are using it like crazy, which is cool, but what are you actually building? And is it going to really move the needle? And I think that we’re in a space where we’re in a time where discernment around this, discernment around focus, discernment around attention and noise is so important because it is so easy to get caught up in this.

And I find myself there. I find myself feeling behind, and I need to implement this. And so here’s what I’ve been thinking about and here’s what I’ve been focusing on, is number one, if it’s an area that I feel like is gonna change a lot in the next several months, I’m waiting to implement that piece of AI.

And so I’m asking myself where either can we solve a big problem that we have in terms of efficiency, let’s say it’s a role and this is taking half their time. And if we could automate this or we could build an agent or we could do something that would save, half of somebody’s time, that’s a huge amount per year.

We could put focus into that. Or is it gonna make us money? Is it adding something in the business that’s gonna help us with lead generation, it’s gonna help us with sales, it’s gonna help us with visibility? It’s something that we can do around that. So everything that I consider implementing, I think about number one, is it an addition to what we’re doing that is gonna make us more money, that is going to grow the business, which that could look like like I’m, I’m– I’ve built something, I’m working on something that will find specific quality leads to our highest level offer so we can send packages in the mail, so we can do outreach.

So okay, that’s something we don’t have happening right now that will grow the business with leads. Okay? Or second piece would be, is it going to save a tremendous amount of time to where I could say it’s, 50% of someone’s time. If someone’s making 70K a year and you save 50% of their time, you just saved $35,000 a year, right?

Because not to replace them, what can they do? What else can that person now do to grow the business? And so anything you’re thinking about actually implementing, that’s what you should run it through. Is this gonna save time or is this gonna actually grow the business? Not, “This is a really cool app that I can quickly build,” or, “A really cool agent that I can quickly build.”

Because I’ll tell you who’s winning in those situations. The tokens that you have to buy, from Claude or the usage of chat, or the companies that have built themselves right now off of selling you how to use AI, which is fine. It’s gonna be a bubble. We’re gonna have all these people that are teaching AI, teaching how to use it, and then- It’s gonna be a bubble and those companies won’t really exist in several years or maybe the leading ones will continue to.

But it’s… You have to, as an entrepreneur, not get caught up in chasing everything that you think is an opportunity because there’s no shortage of opportunities. That’s the thing. And that is also the thing in a time of, massive readjustment, which is what we’re experiencing right now where there’s a big readjustment period of how we spend our time, how we allocate resources, how we set up our systems, how we just function because of AI.

When that happens, that readjustment means there’s tons of opportunity, tons of money to be made while the readjustment happens. There is so much opportunity. I was talking to my friend this weekend who also is very successful very successful investor and entrepreneur, and he’s “There is so much money out there right now to be made,” because we haven’t readjusted yet.

We haven’t caught up to the fact that AI can do these things and can do these things quickly. So when you use AI, you’re now at a massive advantage, but you have to use it, strategically. So there’s that massive adjustment, and then there’s also the people who eventually will get left behind because they are not– they are comfortable.

That’s what I see. They’re comfortable in how things are right now. They’re comfortable in how they operate, whether it’s their business, whether it’s a job, whether it’s, whatever. They’re comfortable, and they’re not challenging that comfort to be a part of the readjustment. And so I think when you talk about roles, when you talk about copywriters, designers, tech people, agencies, all of them, like, all these roles that people talk about will be nonexistent.

I don’t think they’ll be completely nonexistent. Way less people are gonna do it. But the people who right now lean into the discomfort and lean into you… If there’s a readjustment period, you have to be responsible for readjusting yourself to still be a valuable part of society. And I believe, no matter what, humans will still have value.

I, I just believe that. I believe in humanity. I believe in people. I believe that AI just will never have the heart and the soul that humans have. And I know people are like yeah it could.” I don’t know. Maybe we’re gonna destroy ourselves with AI. But right now , what can you control?

Which is how you show up. And so the discernment behind how do you spend your time, how do you push your comfort zone, like, how do you try new things as it relates to AI, but how do you also not let the noise and the distraction and the shiny objects pull you away from what’s important? And I really think- Now more than ever before is such an important time to have such strict boundaries with your time and energy and attention.

And attention, that’s the thing. It’s like what gets your attention? Because I notice it myself, if I go on Instagram and I start scrolling, I feel sometimes overwhelmed because there’s so much noise, and it’s not a helpful amount. It’s not helpful noise. It’s not actually contributing. Like when I need to go and solve a problem or focus on something, I can go find that information, but just allowing it to be available and in my face creates this like I’m falling behind narrative.

So kinda back to kind- the original start of this of are you looking at… I know a lot of people who are thinking the thought of, “Is what I’m doing now going to be relevant in the next few years? Should I put my time and energy into this? Should I focus on this?” I think that’s a question all of us are asking, even myself.

Like what will evolve with the company, and what do I need to be focusing on? And I think it’s a question we have to keep asking and keep contemplating. But what I know is focusing on your unique strengths, what you bring. Like I know that our company brings a very unique way of looking at marketing.

One thing that we’re very good at is taking somebody’s authentic magic and amplifying that into marketing so that they stand out, so that they capture attention, so that they build a brand, become a category of one, all those things. We’re really good at that. How do we continue to pair that while building the marketing strategies, launching the ads, implementing with AI, so that now we’re a system that works with AI?

And I think e- everybody is, it, people are not gonna wanna, business owners are not gonna wanna still go in and actually manage their ads. They’re gonna still want someone to manage the AI and oversee it. So you can continue to be valuable as long as you focus on that, and you allow just enough of what is going to either save the most time in my company, and therefore money, or contribute to growth, and then you focus on building that out when it comes to AI.

And don’t let it overwhelm you. Reframe it into, “How can I be excited about all of this opportunity?” And how can I challenge myself to lean into the discomfort of all of the new and the potential overwhelm and challenge myself to just play with it and learn? Because there’s so much about this too.

I was actually talking to my dad the other day who owns a construction company, and he’s gotten way into using it and built this whole thing for his company. But he’s “There’s so much that I don’t know, so you don’t know what you don’t know, and you have to start something and have an idea for it and then build on top of it as you go.”

So anyways, all that to say, I guess this kind of turned into an AI podcast, which I didn’t mean for it to just be that, but I do think it’s like just such a relevant conversation. And it’s shifting every week what I put attention into. But I will say as the CEO, here is where I’m at.

Number one, I’m trying to create capacity within our day-to-days as a company to where we can have set-aside time to work on things related to AI. I’m also trying to challenge my team individually to really lean into it, because again, I’m seeing this so clearly. Like it is easier to keep doing what you’ve always done, how you’ve done it, and not evolve yourself to be valuable and relevant today.

And as I’m doing hiring interviews, we’re hiring copywriter, we need a new funnel tech. If they tell me, “Yeah, I know how to use Claude like a ninja,” I’m like, “I’ll pay more for you, literally, because you will produce so much more.” That’s what I’m saying. There’s so much potential and so much money right now because we haven’t caught up.

Eventually, that’s gonna be the normal when how much output you can produce with AI is gonna become the normal, but it’s gonna take a few years. So right now, if you are an individual or a company that can produce more output for the same price because you’re leveraging AI, you now are more valuable and there’s so much opportunity for you.

That’s literally what I did with our offers. With our first two level offers, they’re priced at the level of a program but done for you because we’re maximizing efficiency on the back end. And you won’t even know what is AI, what is not. Like the copy, it is still touched by a copywriter. We have a process that pulls everything out of the entrepreneur that is…

makes it have the depth, makes it have the authenticity, makes it have what doesn’t sound like AI. And so that opportunity is what you need to focus on right now while staying focused, while staying locked in, while not letting the noise and the fear. And then, back to my original thing of this like moral obligation.

I just don’t agree with it. Like when we invented, What is it? Factories that had, machines start doing things that people used to do, you don’t say, “I’m gonna keep paying the companies that are paying the people to do what machines could do.” That’s not… We live in a society of evolution, and technology is going to evolve.

And so whether you like it or not, I am with you on let’s go backwards in tech. It’s ruining a lot of things and making us not present and all these things, but it is reality. And so you don’t have to get on this moral high horse of “I’m only gonna support businesses who don’t do this.”

I look at Russell Brunson’s decision and say, “That’s stupid for you to fire your entire copywriting team.” Maybe either, A, trim it down to the big- the best players who are leveraging AI to the best of… doing an incredible job with it. Fully support that as a CEO. Or B, how could you produce more output?

Could you put more content out there? Could you expand to different channels? Like, how could you grow your business? That’s how I look at it as a CEO, and that’s how I would look at his decision to fire an entire department and replace it with AI. I just… I don’t think it’s actually a smart move. I know there’s a lot of companies who have done that with programming, and now their code is a huge mess because they’ve let AI do all this coding, and they need developers to come in and fix it.

So I think we’re learning, too, as businesses and entrepreneurs, that it c- it’s not black or white. It is an integration of AI. But as a business owner, as a member of society, the only way to keep yourself valuable is to lean into the evolution. And the faster you do that, the more you can capitalize on opportunity that really is this window of 10 times the opportunity of what it will be in a few years.

So food for thought. Again, a big thing is discernment of your attention, and your time, and what you choose to focus on. And when you go to build something in your company with AI or build out a process, is it gonna save massive time, therefore money, or is it going to grow your business? And there’s lots of opportunity for growing the business easier that didn’t exist before.

I wish all of this existed when I first started my company ’cause it is easier now than ever to grow a company. but it’s also easier to get extremely distracted and shiny object bouncing around everywhere than it was ever before, and that has to come down to self-discipline because the external is pulling your attention all day long constantly.

And I do think we’re gonna see a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with this, where they feel like they’re being productive ’cause they’re working on something new. They’re working on an AI project or maybe they’re like, “Oh, I should launch this new offer with AI.” And so it feels productive, but it’s actually counterproductive because it’s not focused on what’s gonna grow the company and move the needle the most.

Opportunity is not the problem. There is a tremendous amount of opportunity. Focus, depth, discernment, and relentless commitment to that is where the money is and is where the experienced, seasoned entrepreneurs are doubling down on. They’re not bouncing all around and doing this shiny object stuff.

They’re like, “Double down, improve what we have, add to what we have, don’t lose focus.” All right, guys. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Turned into an AI episode. I have another topic, but I’m gonna… it’s too opposite. We’re gonna do another podcast for that topic. I hope you guys have a beautiful rest of your week, and I will talk to you next time.