When AI makes intelligence and labor functionally free, the economic value of human work diminishes. The last bastion of human value will be the willingness to incur risk—deploying capital, making decisions with incomplete information, and shouldering the consequences.
To navigate AI's uncertainty, adopt a dual approach. On one end, aggressively integrate AI into your business. On the other, invest in industries catering to timeless human needs like health, food, and entertainment, which are less likely to be completely disrupted.
The disruption from AI is not incremental but a fundamental environmental shift, like water turning to gas. No matter how good you are at "swimming" (your current skills), those skills become useless when the environment's physics change, requiring entirely new modes of operation.
Customers' price sensitivity and expectations are slow to change. If a service traditionally costs $2,000 due to labor, you can use AI to deliver it for $50. By charging the legacy price, early adopters can capture enormous margins before the market fully adjusts.
Instead of trying to automate a whole job like "running ads," break it down into its smallest component tasks (e.g., "write copy," "set budgets"). Use AI as a tutor to help automate each tiny task individually, making the overall process manageable and effective.