How to Implement AI Without Losing Your Voice (or Your Values)

Let’s talk about that little thing called AI.

This week on the BizMagic Podcast, I’m slowing it down and getting real about what AI implementation actually looks like for small business owners. Because it’s not about outsourcing your voice to a robot—it’s about support, not surrender.

In this episode, I share:

• What it really means to implement AI vs. just messing around with it
• Where AI can actually support you in your business (without taking over)
• Why copy-paste AI content just doesn’t cut it
• How to start small, start slow, and still make real progress
• The very real environmental and human costs of AI—and why we need to talk about it
• Practical ways to use AI intentionally without replacing the human magic in your work

This isn’t a hype-filled AI fan club meeting. It’s a grounded, honest conversation about how to explore this tech in a way that aligns with you, your business, and your values.

If you’ve felt curious but also cautious about AI, this one’s for you.

Learn more about BizMagic or the BizMagic Podcast.

Transcript

Welcome back to another episode of the Biz Magic Podcast, your place for all things tech in your online business with solids of General Biz Chat too. My name is Patty Meyer and I am the CEO and founder of Biz Magic, where my team and I support entrepreneurs who are overwhelmed. By the backend tech of their business.

We create, implement, and teach the tweaks that help our clients make a bigger impact with less stress. Today we are gonna talk about good old ai. We talked about it way back early when I restarted this podcast and. We discussed with Tina Moore some ways to use AI in your business, but today we are going to dive a bit deeper about that, and I know that AI can sort of be.

Like a buzzword, right? Artificial intelligence, it's everywhere. It's in your inbox, it's in your feed. Everybody's talking about it. But today I want to slow things down a little bit and take an honest look at what implementing AI actually looks like in your business. Without the overwhelm, without the hype, and without pretending that it's some kind of magic and it's a magic wand that's going to do everything for you and your business.

So today we're gonna talk about how to use ai. Well, not just kind of play around with it, copy and paste, that sort of thing. And how to think about the impact of ai, not just the convenience, because that's a thing that's out there. So we'll get into what AI implementation really means in a small business or a one person business, a small team.

The difference between using AI well and just kind of messing around with it and how to use AI responsibly, including a conversation about ethics, energy, and the very real impact that this technology has on people in the planet. So let's dive in. So let's start with the basics. What does it actually mean to implement AI in your business?

And by now, you likely know that AI stands for artificial intelligence. If you have been in the online business world for more than five minutes, which you likely have, you have probably heard some version of how you should use. AI to do everything for you. Write your blog, answer your emails. Plan your content, handle your customer service.

Run your entire life. And while in theory, AI can help you with all of those things, it's not the same as implementing it intentionally. And so here's what I mean by that. Implementing AI doesn't mean handing over the reins to it. It means identifying where in your business you need support, and then thoughtfully introducing AI tools to augment, not replace your process.

So for example. Maybe your writing content and that takes you hours. You can try to use chat GBT to help you outline your blog posts or draft social media captions. That's a real use case, but for it to work well, you are still involved. You're still reviewing and editing, shaping the message, so it sounds like you, that.

Is implementation. Compare that to just sort of messing around right? When you're copying and pasting whatever it gives you. No edits, no voice, no proofreading, and then just calling it good. That is not implementation. That's outsourcing your authority to a robot. And that's not really a great look for your brand, quite honestly.

So if you're wondering how to start implementing AI without getting overwhelmed, here's some advice that I have for you. Start small, start slow. Start with something that's already a pain point that you have. Maybe you are stuck staring at a blank page every time you want to write a newsletter. Let AI help you there.

That is a great place to start. Maybe you are repeating the same responses to emails and inquiries over and over again. You can use AI to help draft a template That's real supportive implementation. You don't have to overhaul your business overnight. I always say that and I will continue to say that.

You definitely don't have to pretend that AI is smarter than you because it's not just because it's a computer and it's a robot. It's not smarter than you. It's faster sometimes. It's helpful very often, but it's not a replacement for your judgment, for your creativity, for your voice. Okay, so. Now let's talk about the difference between using AI well and just kind of messing around with it.

There is a big, big gap between thoughtful use and lazy use of ai. Using AI well means you. Know the goal of the task you're using it for. You guide the output of AI with clear prompts. You review and revise the results that you receive. You make sure that it aligns with your voice, your values, your context.

On the other hand, using AI in more of a lazy fashion is. Copying and pasting content with no edits, asking for something generic and publishing it just as it is, letting AI write all of your captions, your bios, your emails, without even checking if the tone of voice matches. Because here's the thing, even if you're just one person doing all of the things in your business, your audience can still tell when you're phoning it in and phoning it in with ai.

Is more obvious these days, especially. People know what they're looking for. They know how to be on the lookout for ai. There are telltale signs nowadays of ai and the more people that see it, the more they get used to it, the more they know what to look for. So it's not always maybe as sneaky as it once felt like when you were first using ai, if you were first using it at all.

So you don't have to be perfect when you're using it. You just have to be present. The goal here isn't to automate everything and use AI as much as you possibly can for as much as you possibly can. While it's fun to play with it, like there's other ways to go about utilizing it, it's support that helps you show up better, show up more consistently and more creatively.

As yourself, even though that feels weird, right? It's hard to, it, it, it's hard to picture AI helping you show up as yourself because it's not yourself. But if you know how to use the prompts and you know how to communicate with it and utiliz it and you're utilizing it in intentionally, it really can.

Look more like you and, and help you show up like yourself. So if you're using AI tools like Chat, GBT, Canva, uh, magic, uh, Claude, or even like the auto generated email replies like in Gmail, right? That's ai. Make sure you're still in the driver's seat while you're doing it. AI can write the words, but you are the one that gives them the personality.

You are the one that makes them matter. Now for the slightly messier part of this conversation, what does it mean to use AI responsibly? It is super easy right now to get excited about the possibilities, and they are really exciting that AI does. But AI doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's built by people.

It's trained on massive amounts of data, often without consent. If we're honest and it's powered by infrastructure that has a real cost, both human and environmental. So I wanna take a minute and just talk about those impacts. So first, let's talk about the ecological cost. AI systems require a lot of energy and I'm, and I'm talking about these things also because.

I wanna make sure that for those who don't know these things, that they know them. That, that we, I always believe in doing everything as sustainably as, as we can. We can make a difference step by step little bits that we do. And at least if we make choices intentionally, we can help show up in the world in a way that aligns with us, right?

So again. AI systems require a lot of energy training, large language models, which is what this is, consumes a vast amount of electricity and water. Running AI at this scale continuously means more data centers, more energy and more emissions. Now, does that mean you shouldn't use it at all? Not necessarily.

I use it frequently for a lot of things, but also again, intentionally and, and I think we can think about it just like we think about. The environmental impact of shipping physical products, we can start thinking about the digital impact in the same way. And so that might mean using AI intentionally versus constantly.

Instead of using it at every chance you get, you're using it intentionally. You choose platforms that host AI that are transparent about their energy usage, just so that you are in the know. Advocating for sustainable tech practices just like we do in other parts of our business. Second, the human cost.

There's a lot of fear around AI taking jobs and in some industries that is already happening. So it, it's a valid fear. And I think the more nuanced view of this though is that AI doesn't take jobs on its own. It's how businesses choose to use it. So when we treat AI as a way to eliminate human contributions entirely, especially in creative or service-based work, we're devaluing the very thing that makes business feel human, and that's a choice.

And that's a choice that we don't necessarily have to make. That's a choice that some businesses are making. And again, the same as we choose who we support in all aspects of our life, we can choose to support organizations that might utilize AI without replacing all of their team. I could theoretically use AI significantly more than I do and replace people on my team, but that doesn't fit with me.

I would much rather have. People helping me on my team with the things that I need than I would ai. I utilize AI again, very intentionally for certain types of brainstorming, starting copy out a lot with this podcast. I, I utilize it to help me with show notes and transcriptions and things like that. But when I utilize ai, all of the content I create in this podcast comes from me.

AI might help me with parts of the process, but this is stuff that's in my brain. These are things that I already know. These are things that I want to talk about, and so this is an intentional way of utilizing it, and this is something that is replacing parts of me in this work without replacing other people on my team, if that makes sense.

So when we want to look at that human cost, we can ask, where can AI free up time so that we can hire more thoughtfully? How can we evaluate our human collaborators by giving them better tools and not replacing them? That is a great way to support your team, potentially cut some costs if necessary, or even better.

Take some of your work and the way you're showing up to the next level by providing your team with tools. What roles actually require judgment, empathy, nuance, and how do we protect and honor those roles in our businesses? You may or may not be running a large team or. Any team at all. But I think these are still really important questions to ask yourself because how we use tech shapes the world that we live in and small businesses, we're not small in our impact.

Many of us have a big desire to make a big impact in the world. So how we show up, as I've discussed recently, is super important and this is one of those ways. So where does that leave us? If you're curious about AI, but also a little bit wary, that's actually I think a really good place to be because curiosity means that you're open to learning.

Being wary means that you care about doing it well. You don't have to jump on every new tool or trend, and you definitely don't have to use AI the way that somebody else tells you. I mean, you don't have to use it at all. I just want to introduce these ways that you can use it. Differently. You get to experiment.

You get to try something, see if it helps and adjust. You get to ask hard questions and you get to say no to things that don't align with your values such as AI or such as using AI excessively. So I think that there are a few simple ways to move forward from here. Choose one area of your business that feels heavy.

Try using an AI tool to support that one task. Not take it over, but collaborate with it. Think of it like a brainstorming partner instead of a ghost writer. Two, edit and review everything. Make sure it sounds like you add your voice, your nuance, your story. And three, stay curious about the big picture.

Read up on AI ethics. Look into the environmental impact support tools and companies that are doing the work responsibly because it isn't just about being more efficient, it's about being more it intentional. And that's it that that's what I have for you today. I hope this gave you a really grounded and practical way to think about AI and not just as a scary.

Thing that's happening in our world, or another fun, shiny object that you can just play with and do whatever, and I hope that it's something that you can choose to use. Well, as always, if you need any help with anything, you know where to find me, patty@bizmagic.co or on the website. At Biz magic.co, and I'm always here to support you and your journey and your business in whatever way that may look.

Thanks so much. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Biz Magic Podcast. Like most small businesses and podcasts, we rely heavily on word of mouth. So if you like what you heard today or in any episode, please share with your. Friends and colleagues and rate, subscribe and comment on your favorite podcast platform.

Till next time, cheers to your magical biz success.