AI is everywhere right now.

Everyone has:
• AI tools
• AI workflows
• AI automations
• AI “growth hacks”

And most of them are solving the wrong problem.

Because AI doesn’t fix unclear thinking.
It amplifies it.

If your positioning is vague, AI will make it vaguely louder.
If your ICP is fuzzy, AI will generate 100 versions of fuzzy.
If your offer is weak, AI will help you promote it faster.

That’s not leverage.
That’s acceleration into mediocrity.

Why AI Feels So Powerful

AI feels powerful because it compresses effort.

Things that used to take:
• Hours
• Days
• Teams

Now take minutes.

That’s intoxicating.

But speed without direction is just faster confusion.

The companies that win with AI won’t be the ones who automate everything.

They’ll be the ones who use it to think better.

The Core Mistake Most Founders Make

They treat AI like a replacement for strategy.

They ask:
• “What should my positioning be?”
• “What should my messaging be?”
• “What’s the best funnel?”
• “What should I post?”

Those are leadership questions.

AI doesn’t have context.
It doesn’t have taste.
It doesn’t have judgment.
It doesn’t have responsibility.

It can help you explore.
It cannot decide for you.

How I Actually Use AI

I don’t use AI to think for me.

I use it to:
• Compress cycles
• Explore angles
• Stress-test ideas
• Synthesize inputs
• Speed up iteration

Here’s how.

1. Pattern Discovery

When I’m trying to understand a market, I feed AI:

• Sales transcripts
• Customer interviews
• Reviews
• Support logs
• Forum threads

And I ask it to:
• Identify themes
• Group pain points
• Surface language
• Flag emotional triggers

This speeds up what used to take days of manual synthesis.

But I still decide what matters.

2. Messaging Exploration

I don’t ask AI for “the best copy.”

I ask for:
• Variations
• Angles
• Framings
• Counter-positions
• Emotional tones

Then I evaluate them.

AI helps me explore the space faster—but I still choose the direction.

3. Offer Stress-Testing

I use AI to:
• Roleplay objections
• Simulate buyer personas
• Identify confusion
• Surface perceived risk
• Predict misunderstanding

This helps me refine offers before I ship them.

4. Funnel Diagnostics

AI is great for:
• Pattern spotting
• Hypothesis generation
• Bottleneck analysis
• System modeling

It’s bad at:
• Knowing what matters
• Understanding nuance
• Making tradeoffs

So I use it as a thinking partner, not a decider.

5. Execution Acceleration

This is where most people start—and it’s where I end.

AI helps me:
• Draft content
• Generate variants
• Create outlines
• Summarize data
• Build internal docs

This saves time—but it’s not where the real value is.

Where AI Actively Hurts Teams

Yes, hurts.

1. When It Replaces Thinking

If you ask AI what your positioning should be, you will get something average.

Because it’s trained on what already exists.

Great positioning is not average.

2. When It Increases Output Without Direction

More content ≠ more growth.

If your system is wrong, AI just helps you do the wrong thing faster.

3. When It Becomes a Crutch

If your team can’t explain why something is true without asking AI, you don’t have alignment.

You have dependency.

4. When It Masks Strategy Gaps

AI makes it easy to hide confusion under polish.

That’s dangerous.

AI + Leadership = Leverage

Here’s the real equation:

Strategy × AI = Leverage
No strategy × AI = Noise

The companies that win with AI will:
• Make better decisions
• Faster
• With more confidence
• With less waste

Not just more content.

How I Think About AI Inside a Growth System

I treat AI as a force multiplier for:

• Research
• Ideation
• Iteration
• Synthesis
• Documentation

Not as a substitute for:

• Positioning
• Judgment
• Taste
• Prioritization
• Accountability

Those remain human.

What This Means for Founders

If you want AI to actually help you:

1. Get clear first

2. Then automate

3. Then scale

Not the other way around.

AI does not fix unclear ICPs.
AI does not fix weak offers.
AI does not fix vague positioning.

It just helps you hide them faster.

Why This Matters for Marketing Leadership

Marketing is not about output.

It’s about:
• Decision-making
• Focus
• Coherence
• Learning loops
• System design

AI is incredible at accelerating those—if you already have them.

If you don’t, it will expose you.

The Bottom Line

AI is not your strategy.

It is your amplifier.

And amplification is dangerous when you don’t know what you’re amplifying.

The future belongs to leaders who use AI to:
• Think faster
• Learn faster
• Decide faster
• Build better systems

Not those who use it to avoid thinking.