5 Signs You're Still Your Own Assistant (And AI Isn't Fixing It)

Everyone is talking about AI.
But no one is talking about the time it's quietly stealing.

Right now, business owners are in what Emma calls "magpie mode" distracted by shiny new AI tools while still doing everything themselves. And here's the problem: AI isn't going to fix that. Because if you don't have an assistant, you are one.

In this episode, Emma unpacks the real difference between an AI agent and an executive assistant and why even the most successful business owners she admires still have a human EA at their side. She then walks through the 5 signs you're still your own assistant in 2026, from managing your own emails to ending every week wondering where it went.

If you feel busy, distracted, or like your week disappears without real progress, this episode will bring you back to what actually moves the needle.

🎧 Hit play to hear the mindset shifts, lessons, and decisions that help founders use AI without losing their focus, protect their time, and start thinking like a CEO again.

Because in the age of AI, the most valuable thing you can reclaim in your business isn’t just time. It’s your attention.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Business owners are obsessed, worried, excited, all the things at the moment about AI. And everyone's wondering when God's gonna create that eighth day of the week to actually figure out AI. Like, I feel somebody's for people have forgotten that people still got businesses to run and they're trying to figure out when to implement, when to learn, all the new stuff. Like we've just had a new thing to figure out. And now more than ever, the phrase which you'll have heard me say a million times is that if you don't have an assistant, you are one. Like it's such it's so true, it's truer than ever right now in 2026. There is a lot to do, there is a lot to figure out. Today's episode is gonna talk through the five signs that you are still your own assistant as a business owner, even in the age of AI. And I'm gonna touch on the difference between an AI agent and an executive assistant, and I think it's gonna be really useful for people that are excited and panicked all at the same time about learning, implementing agents, you know, it's changing all the time, and it's gonna be helpful for those people that also are losing more time than ever because they're trying to implement all the new shiny things. And I think that business owners are doing more tinkering than ever, they are more distracted by shiny new object syndrome, they are more in magpie mode than ever. Like I sit in WhatsApp groups about AI, talking about AI in other mastermind groups who are now like, what's your use of AI? Everybody's low-key obsessed with it. And I just want today's episode to be a 10-minute reminder to address the elephant in the room that nobody got extra time created in their week. And so what's happened is we've kind of because of the time-saving aspect and um advantage that AI is going to bring to every single business, and the ones that implement it quicker are the ones that are gonna be ahead. Totally that I'm not saying that any of that is not true, it is totally true, but what it has given rise to as well is kind of this um approval of tinkering all the time with AI and learning and trying, and we're all at the same level, like nobody's streets ahead, so every business owner is like trying this new AI software and this one, and how does that work? And that's great if you have someone full-time that's there to do it, but the the reality is that 99% of business owners don't have somebody full-time, they're dedicated to AI, so they are doing it themselves, and it's almost been this new approval of it's okay to have shiny magpie object syndrome if it's AI, because it's about to revolutionize your business. God knows what it's gonna be like in 2030. But what I want you to get from today's episode is are you potentially wasting hours in the week tinkering? That isn't that is still not the job of a business owner to tinker. Yet, maybe if you block a couple of hours in the week or you block some time, but I want to get away from tinkering because AI is putting some business owners down a path that they are going to waste lots of time, they're gonna forget about the key strategy for every business owner, which is leverage, delegate, and make the absolute most of your time and pass off everything to everybody else. Like today, I want to be that slightly annoying voice in your ear. That is, don't get so distracted by AI that you forget to do the thing you should actually be doing in your business, which is maximizing the most important thing that you have, which is your time. So, just a minute to big up AI. Not for a second is this episode about don't use it, don't implement it. Um, Emma's scared of it, so she's telling us not to use it. It's not about that, it's about being super clear on the time you dedicate to it, what you dedicate it to, and should it actually be you. So, obviously, AI is brilliant, it's already speeding up so many things. We are gaining hours back in my PA every single week, and there should be a second episode that I do about this with some real life uses of how we're using AI. I'm sure it will be helpful for you, you know, for repeatable defined tasks, for agents, automation, AI. I'm not anti-AI at all. We're doing a lot with it at my PA, but I think it'd be easy for business owners to get really sidetracked and think that they are then working on the most important stuff when actually they're just working on a new version of all the softwares that have come before, all the automations, all the new, like all the all the things that we think are going to be the silver bullet. If it is on you to set it up, if it is on you to do all the testing and tinkering, 100% you are gonna have a problem because there are only so many hours in the day. So the thing is as well with AI agents and automation, somebody still has to set them up, somebody still has to manage them, somebody still has to make sure that they are doing the thing because they're only as good as the information we put in. And if that is you doing the thing, then you definitely have a problem pending. And right now, in most small businesses, that person is the business owner. So I just wanted to make a core distinction between AI agents and automation, which I know are gonna get better and better, but I'm just talking about them at the level that they're at now, and an executive assistant because some people are getting really wrapped up in the fact that they're not gonna need any team members, everything's gonna be AI, and at probably at some point that's gonna happen. It wouldn't be for me, like who wants to sit on their own all day talking to agents, not me. But I just wanted to make the distinction between the two because an AI agent is gonna perform the task with the information that you give it, so it's only as good, obviously, as the information you put into whatever system you're using, that's what it's gonna base its decision making from. NEA, on the other hand, has something that AI cannot do at the moment, which is one hierarchical reasoning, but two, that that connection and emotional intelligence of understanding you as a human, and whether that's that you they know that you operate best in the morning, so you should be your time should be kept clear then, whether you need keeping to account on the things that have to happen, whether you um a client's just cancelled, and actually you need try to you need a time to yourself because you're a bit stressed, and like an EA is gonna think for you, an EA is gonna tie together all of the open and closed loops. Again, an AA an AI agent will only deal with the specificness of the task that you've given it. An EA's job is to look at the 51 tasks that are happening at any one time, close loops, pull them together, think about them before you without you having to identify um every single task that's hanging around. That is an EA's job, and at the moment it's very, very difficult for AI to replicate that. And so I just I want this episode to be helpful because I don't want somebody to think an AI agent is gonna is is the is the place where every business owner should be heading to. Because without a fact, because for a fact, every single business owner that I learn from and mentored by that I look up to, that I admire, every single one of them has got an executive assistant in some way. There is not one of them, yet they're all testing agents and automations, some of them have got Minimax just getting stuff done and having agents working as employees, but every single one of them has still got an executive assistant, and I just think it's a really key distinction that business owners need to be mindful of at the moment that you can sit in your office, go down the rabbit hole, and try and automate all these individual tasks, or you can have your time protected by an EA who can also help you implement the AI agents. Like if you are, I'm just afraid that some business owners are going to become stuck in the doing, in creating something that doesn't go anywhere, in creating an automation that doesn't work, in creating an agent that they then can't monitor and it starts to do the wrong thing. Still, the number one thing should be protecting your time because it's the only thing we can't make more of, as we know, with somebody that can connect with you, have the relationship, understand your nuance of how you like to work, and that that is when you start to operate in your most, as I would say, focus on the fun stuff, doing the things that you really enjoy. So AI is exceptional at execution with the information that you give it. What it's not so good at yet, and what it can't do yet, is knowing when you're tired, knowing that a client needs handling with some care because they've had a couple of repeating problems, know that you need the afternoon free because actually you're just completely overwhelmed. An executive assistant is still the key advantage that every business owner I admire still has in their business. They haven't completely thrown out all team members to just build AI agents, they're testing AI and they still have an executive assistant. Here's my fear, and I say this as someone who loves AI, we're implementing it, we're testing it, I'm trying all the new stuff all the time. But my fear is that AI is gonna get small business owners stuck in the weeds more than ever before because they've got the approval and the excuse that it means they're gonna be ahead of the curve. When actually they're back in old shiny object syndrome, which for years all the gurus have told you to stay out of just to stay on the most important stuff. But the AI hype is giving every business owner the excuse they need to test and get stuck into all this sexy new stuff, which isn't necessarily gonna bring any return to their business. I'm afraid that business owners are no longer spending half an hour to delegate a task or to pass it to a team member, instead, they're spending hours trying to create an AI agent for it. And yet I know these things will get quicker and faster. But instead of actually just focusing on delegating the task, everybody's trying to become a technician to create the agent, and it's completely self-defeating. But and it's a different kind of doing, but it's still doing, you're still stuck in the weeds, you're just stuck in new weeds of creating agents. So, just for everybody out there that is being easily swayed by the latest reel that you come across that is somebody telling you your business is going to die if you don't have AI in it, the highest leverage thing you can do as a business owner is still focus on delegating and passing off every task that does not need you in your business. And the key word is off, like off your list, off your plate, out of your brain. The opposite's happening because we're getting more stuff to try to test to implement. We need to go back to the highest leverage thing, getting stuff off your to-do list. And if you're spending your own time implementing AI, you haven't solved the problem still, you just like redecorated it as a new problem. Still, the problem is that you are stuck in the weeds. And by all means, the most important thing with it with AI, I believe, is to block time for it. Just like you block time for the highest priorities in your business. By all means, Friday afternoon, AI afternoon, two hours on a Thursday morning, get up two hours early to implement it. Block focus time to test, create, and implement AI, but don't let it all of a sudden be all-consuming. Take the week. Block time, but don't let it quietly eat like all of the time that was meant to go on the most important work. That important work hasn't gone away just because AI has arrived. So here is your reminder on this week's episode of five signs, I think, that you are still your own assistant. And number one is that you were the first and last person to do anything in your emails. You you know, whether you read them first, to triage them, to forward them on, to do something with them. If you were the first and last person in your inbox, you're still your own assistant. Because a real executive assistant would have got to 95% of that before you'd even read any emails. Number two is that you are doing the admin of the admin. We've all got to-do lists, but then the the delegating, the triaging of the work, the closing the loops, the chasing up have they done that, the to-do list ends up having its own to-do list. Like none of these things get knocked off one by one. And if you're managing all of the outcomes, the updates, the feedback from that, the to-do list now has its own to-do list and you're doing two jobs, not one. Number three is your diary. If you are the one that's trying to gatekeep for yourself, put buffers in, trying to commit to the owner, you trying to commit to the appointments you put in your own diary, double bookings, no buffers between calls. An EA would never let this happen, but when we're managing our own diaries, we let things happen that shouldn't. And so if you are the only one looking at your calendar, you are definitely your own assistant. Um, number four is if there is no gatekeeper and no buffer between you and everybody else, whether it's team or customers, you are your own assistant. If a team member in my business has a question, they will go to Bex first and it will be filtered through. If a client comes through, whether it's ringing, emailing, either Bex will have filtered my emails first, and if she can help, she will. Um if they ring in, the team will answer the call, forward it to Bex, or if somebody else can help that's more appropriate to do so, there isn't much that comes directly to me that isn't filtered by somebody else first. So if you are the your own geek gatekeeper, if there is no buffer between you and the outside world and every single question, whether whether it's whether it's valid or not, lands on your desks, you are your own assistant. And number five is if you end every week just wondering where it went, that is the surest sign because it just means that all of the reactive tasks that an assistant or somebody else should be helping you with are sat on your own plate and it and you don't have the time to do the priority stuff, which means that the CEO stroke assistant ratio is completely off, and that you are just you are more heavy in assistant tasks than CEO, and that is ultimately the key reason why most business owners get to Friday think, what the hell happened there? Because they don't have all of the time prioritized, the focus blocks of time in their diary, they are batting off the requests, the reactive task, the things that pop in the inbox. That's why the weeks disappear. And if you are signed up to my newsletter that goes out every Sunday, if you're not, you should be, obviously, which is win the week. It's because winning the week is so important. There is no one big goal or no one big email that comes in that tells you that like you've hit your goals for the year. There is no one big event unless you are just unless you are trying to exit your business and maybe that day of sale is the goal. But for 95% of us, there is no one big event that means we've hit our goals this year. The things we want to do is achieve by winning the week. And that's why I bang on about it so much, it's so important. And I just business owners that are becoming obsessed and down the rabbit hole with if I don't implement AI in my business immediately, it is going to die, are going to face a different problem, which is they spent so much time on things that potentially didn't work or needed managing, they forgot the key focus, which is that is great, that needs to happen, but maybe the EA is the person to implement the agents, which is something that we're doing now at my PA. Maybe it's um that actually they just need to make sure, maybe they need to free up more time to work on AI by getting an assistant to take more tasks off them. I just know that AI is changing everything, and you should absolutely be learning it, using it, implementing it, but it doesn't change the oldest truth that still exists, which is your your time is the most important thing, and you can't make more of it. So the time that you use that 40 hours in the week is still the tell all. It's to whether you have a business that you love or a business that you are stressed in, overwhelmed by, and finish every Friday thinking what the heck went on. And if you don't have an assistant, you are one. That motto stands stronger than ever because there's more things vying for our attention. And you know, maybe yeah, at some point AI can do all the things, like absolutely everything, but the motto will still be true because the person running the business, whatever that looks like, whether it's got a hundred agents or whatever that looks like, the person running the business still needs to be the person who decides what matters, and that person still needs time to think, and an EA will make that happen. Today's episode is just a little reminder that AI is here and it's here to stay, but don't let it be the next thing that actually takes your business off course. I sit in so many rooms and everybody's stressed and worried and trying to figure out the right way to do it, but protecting your time first, getting everything that is low value, the£10 tasks, whatever you want to call them, off your list is still the most important thing to do first. I'm obsessed with figuring out how to run a business where you focus on the fun stuff, and I hope today's episode got you one step closer to that. I'll see you next week.