AI Should Support You Not Replace You

I’m recording from the sofa in dark glasses, recovering from cataract surgery, and it’s been a sharp lesson in what happens when you physically can’t “push through”. When you can’t sit at a laptop, can’t type properly, and your energy dips, business doesn’t stop needing attention, but you do need a different way to move. That’s where AI has genuinely helped me this week, not as a shortcut, but as support.

AI tools like ChatGPT are everywhere, yet most people fall into two camps: they avoid them because it all feels too much, or they hand everything over and end up sounding like a template. I talk about the hidden cost of that second approach. If your captions, emails, and posts read like everyone else, your personal brand disappears, and audiences can feel it. Authenticity is not optional when trust is the currency.

My favourite practical method is simple: I get AI to ask me questions instead of writing for me. It pulls the answers out of my head when I’m stuck, helps me structure content, and gives me a starting point without replacing my experience. If you want to save time on content creation and email marketing while keeping your own voice, this approach is a strong place to begin.

Subscribe for more practical strategy, share this with a business friend who’s unsure about AI, and leave a review if it helps. What’s one task you’d like AI to support this week without taking over?

Transcript

Welcome And Quick Context

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hey everyone, it's Victoria here. Welcome back to another episode of A Business Built with Strategy. So I am recording this podcast in all honesty, sitting on the sofa with my dark glasses on because I am still recovering from my cataract surgery. I'm the second week in, so I'm now going into the second week. Oh, goodness me. If I said I was bored, that is probably the biggest understatement. It's really difficult because I can't actually do anything. I'm not allowed to bend down. I'm not allowed to, so I can't, you know, do normal stuff like pack the dishwasher, put the washing on, you know, all normal stuff that, you know, a lot of us just take take for granted. Um and that kind of brings me to the topic that I am going to be talking to you about this week. Now, I cannot use my laptop at the moment. It's because even if I turn the backlight down, it's still too bright, even with my dark glasses on. And not being able to work has well, it has forced me to rest. And I do think I do think that's probably a good thing that actually I am taking a break. Well, it was a good thing for a couple of days, maybe. Um, but I can't go outside because it's too bright. So I can't even I can't even sit in the garden. Um, so it it kind of lost its its feel in the first 48 hours of actually taking a break. So this is what I want to talk to you about this week. I want to talk to you about how AI is helping me in my business and how AI has helped me this week as well. Because not being able to work has yeah, it's not really gone down with me very well. Especially as a week before my op, I was actually writing my strategy. Because as a lot of you know, I am coming, I'm coming back with a brand new business, a brand new brand, and I'm so excited. But to do that, there is a lot of work involved. And when you're stopped, you you you know, and you're you're right at the beginning and you're really excited, and you've got so much to do, yeah, it's not the one. So obviously, AI is everywhere, isn't it? Wherever we look, AI is, but most people are either overwhelmed by it or just not using it at all, or then you get you know, the people who are using it for absolutely everything, you know, the amount of times that maybe I've gone onto Instagram, for example, and you know, I'm trailing through my feed, and so many people seem to be a carbon copy of everyone. And I've even read things where obviously, you know, you know that they're done by AI. You can tell you you can just tell um a mile off. But I've also come across posts where it's been done by AI, and at the bottom it's like, would you like me to make this more fun or more, you know, and they've accidentally left that on. And the thing is, you know, that's all great. AI sounds fantastic, but it also makes you sound the same. Now, yes, you can train AI to effectively be a carbon copy of yourself, and that can be done. Would I do it? At the moment, probably not, no, because I I stand for authenticity. That is one of the things that, you know, even when I was a kid, I never ever wanted to be like anyone else. I always wanted to be different. If one person was, I don't know, following a trend or a fashion or or whatever, you know, I would then go the other way because I just didn't want to be the same. And, you know, that did actually bring probably a lot of negatives, but that's for another rep. Um, you know, unfortunately, I think definitely years ago, if you were different, it was seen as more as a negative than a positive. Whereas, you know, I think in today's society, if you're different, I think it's definitely a positive, without a doubt, and I'm glad it is. Um, the thing is, you don't need to know everything about AI to use it. I certainly don't. Um, I did do the AI summit with um Tony Robbins and Dean, do you know? I always get this guy's name wrong. Graciano, Dean Dean Graciano. I'm so sorry that I have got his name wrong, I do apologise. And that was absolutely fantastic. I think it was over like four days. In fact, I think they're running another one. Now that taught me a lot, actually. That that really, really did. Um, but as I say, you don't need to know everything, you just need to know where it fits into your business or your life. You know, I I've got to be honest, I use AI in my life as well, not just my business. Now, I use AI for lots of different things. Now, I like AI to ask me questions. So if maybe I, you know, I know that the answer is buried in there somewhere. Instead of saying to ChatGPT, for example, okay, can you just tell me an answer on this? I turn it around and I say, okay, ask me the questions. Ask me the questions to pull the answers out of me, because I know that they're in there somewhere, you know. Um, so you know, sometimes we do get where our mind is completely blank or it goes blank and we're a little bit stuck. So effectively, by getting it to ask you questions, it helps to get you started, but not do the work for you. And this is, I think, where I have a massive problem with AI. I don't like the idea that it does it for you, but I love that it is like an assistant. And that is exactly, I mean, look, I'm using ChatGPT at the minute. I'm scraping the surface, you know, I really am. But even just scraping the surface with it, it is really helping. It's, you know, for the stuff that I get it to do for me as an assistant, I would have to pay an assistant for. Now, I do a lot of structuring on AI. So maybe I would have a VA and I'd say, okay, we need to structure something, we need to go through podcast steps, um, different posts, the way that I'm going to structure them, emails. Now, when I do this though, I still go back to the way that I like to do it in the fact that if I want to put an email out there, and this is not for every email, don't get me wrong, it might be for a couple. And I'm like, oh, I know the structure, it's in my head. I just can't pull it out. Again, I get it to ask me questions in and around that, and then it's all my work. And I just I love that because normally, you know, you could bounce that off of another person, couldn't you? You know, if you're having a conversation, ask me some questions, pull it out of me. And that I find really works well. It gives you a starting point, so you're not always starting at that blank page. Sometimes you can start at that blank page and you can just write, and you can you can just do it, but you know what? It life's not always like that, is it? Um, and I love that it just gets the thoughts out of your head. You can talk it out, then you can shape it. But yes, you can get it to shape it and do everything, of course you can. But the danger of that is that you are going to sound like everyone else. You go onto any social media platform or you know, look at any email, and you will be able to pick the ones out that are written by AI, and you and it's so easy to do now because we all know that style. And the thing is, it is especially helpful when you've got a lot going on, you know. Um, and let's face it, we are in a world where we all tend to be very, very, very busy. Now, the thing is where I think where people do go wrong with it is trying to make AI do absolutely everything, like we just touched on copying, pasting without even thinking, you know, you lose your own voice. You know, personal brand is absolutely massive at the moment and it will continue to be. But if you get AI to do all the work for you, you have no personal brand. You have, well, I don't quite know what you have really, but it certainly isn't a personal brand because you are literally going to be the same as everyone else who has got the AI or got AI to do the work for them. And you know, the danger of that, it just doesn't sound like you, and it's it's not right. AI should support you and not replace you, and it's definitely there to make things easier and not more complicated, definitely, and it's really helped me with that. But you still need your own thoughts, your experience, and your way of saying things, you know. And if you put out if you if you get AI to do everything and you put that out, it won't be you. You will not have that personal brand that we all need. You you just won't. You will just be a cardboard copy of everyone else. And right now, obviously, I can't go on screens properly. I'm I'm really limited, and uh, you know, it really is actually your energy in a way. My energy isn't the same, and I'm really trying to kind of keep that energy up, but it is very difficult when you can't do everything. So, tools like like AI can help, and it really has helped me this week to keep moving forward without obviously overdoing it. And I've really used AI as my virtual assistant this week because it's too much to be sitting there writing, and I certainly can't type, and it's really come into its own. So, the questions that I'm gonna leave you with this week are are you avoiding AI because it just feels overwhelming, or are you relying on it too much? Where can it actually save you time this week without taking over and being you? Okay, you don't need to master AI, you just need to use it in a way that works for you, like an assistant would, you know. Ask yourself those questions this week. I would love to hear your answers on this. I really, really would. Um, my DMs are always open, and you can email me as well. The information is all on the show notes. Have a fantastic week, whatever you are doing, and I'll speak to you next week. Take care, everyone.