3 questions you must ask about AI

(Thanks to everyone for their condolences and warm wishes yesterday).

I went to a talk by a VC investor in Dublin last week. He asked a room of 70+ people, wondering about AI, these three questions:

1. What types of jobs are most likely to be exposed by AI?
​Before I set up my media business, I wrote content and web copy for small Irish companies. The work was sporadic, but I scratched together a reasonable living. The hardest part of the job was finding clients, not tech.

After I set up my business, I hired writers to produce content for my content websites, paying them between 6 and 20 cents per word. The hardest part of the job was managing a budget.

Unless you’ve got super copywriting chops, content writing is a tough gig to break into now. Barring specialized content, like legal or health articles, a content writer charging per word has to compete with ChatGPT or Claude. Not only that, but they have to convince a client why they should hire them or an AI agent.

2. What types of industries are most likely to be disrupted by AI?
​I’ve three kids and one of them is getting ready for college. A few years ago, I’d have encouraged them to consider computer science or software development. Those degrees nearly guaranteed a six-figure salary on graduation.

(Alas, the same can’t be said for the media degree I did years ago.)

Now?

A developer friend works for a well-known health and fitness company. He tells me it’s much harder for new grads to find work thanks to Claude and ChatGPT. One dev can accomplish the work of ten, using the right AI agent.

9/10 of us are in industries ripe for disruption by AI.

3. Can your job be done by someone who has read a thousand books?
​Book smarts alone aren’t enough to earn a good living anymore… and that’s coming from someone who loves to read.

Information without implementation doesn’t hold much value. If you work solely with facts, figures, and data, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini can do it faster, cheaper, and more efficiently.

But if you understand how to take that info and implement it in a way that AI can’t? Now, that’s valuable.

Yes, AI will eliminate entire job categories. Its read all the books and content online. And this disruption will be painful.

But AI can also help you pivot a business or career.

I’ve spent the past two years figuring out how to use AI for my business.

It’s helped me replace a few pricey SaaS subscriptions and also cut down on money spent on outsourcing.

I’m still in the content and media business, even though the last few years were painful. I don’t use AI for every part of my work, though. I still write newsletters like this one myself because I enjoy the act of putting one word after the next. Writing breeds clear thinking, too.

But AI helps me research and repurpose my ideas.

I’m also exploring what I can do with AI.

I spend a few hours most weeks vibe coding. I’m using AI tools like Lovable, Bolt, Replit, and Cursor to build tools that would have cost me thousands of dollars a few years ago. I’m documenting all of this on YouTube. Vibe coding is hot over there right now.

It’s one part fun and another part business experiment.

I’m still working in an industry that AI has turned on its head. But, information + personal experiences makes for authentic content.

Your followers and clients still crave it. And AI can’t replicate that connection.

I’ve honed an approach to prompt writing and engineering. It’s also becoming a popular course. You can read about it here.