How I’m Using AI In My Business

Thoughts on tech, creativity, and knowing what to keep human

As a content creator who does 98% of her business online, the concept of AI can be a challenging one. Either I’m a luddite who’s wasting precious time if I don’t use it, or I’m outsourcing my creativity if I do! Because I’ve been getting more questions about this–and because it’s a topic that challenges how I think about creativity–I wanted to share how I’m currently using AI in my business, where I’ve drawn the line, and what’s surprised me along the way.

Before we get into it, I want to preface this post by saying that I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to use AI and I’m genuinely interested in hearing from other people who use it for different things than I do. I’ve found it incredibly useful in some ways and I often hear about new applications for it that pique my interest. If you’ve got great AI hacks, please share them in the comments!

When it first became clear that AI was going to become ubiquitous, and quickly, I admit that I felt some skepticism. At first, I didn’t believe a non-human entity could replicate creative work. Early Midjourney images and ChatGPT outputs felt more like party tricks than professional tools. Obviously I was wrong, as we see AI-created advertising and marketing everywhere now–the digital designers and creators caught on quick and the technology improves so much on what feels like a daily basis! Despite my initial skepticism, curiosity got the better of me and I signed up for ChatGPT to see how it could potentially help me and my business.

One of the first things I did was personalize ChatGPT for me. I uploaded my latest brand guidelines into a private GPT and asked my creative agency to put together information that would help train it on my business specifically. If you’re a creative person or business owner who’s interested in using ChatGPT, I would highly recommend doing this. It’s the best way to avoid getting generic GPT advice, research, or other output. Even if you don’t plan on using GPT for your work, you can do this for your personal life–I have a friend who trained ChatGPT on his hotel, restaurant, and general travel preferences so now he uses AI as a personalized travel agent for his upcoming trips.

Once ChatGPT was up to speed on me and my business, Kyle and I started to experiment. I learned pretty quickly that I didn’t want to use it for anything creative–writing, photography, illustration, editing (more on that in a bit)--but Kyle found it very helpful as a brainstorming partner. There have been several times in the last year that we’ve had to start exploring new things in the business and ChatGPT would help Kyle think through the right questions to ask potential new vendors and partners, prompt him with some considerations for how to make the right selection for said vendors and partners, and poke holes in how he was thinking about certain growth objectives. My assistant, Chelsea, also uses the trained GPT to help draft voiceovers and captions, though both are heavily edited by me.

After seeing how AI could help Kyle quickly learn new areas of our business, I decided to start using it as an educational tool for myself. I can’t share the full details just yet, but I’m working on a new venture in an industry that I’m not an expert in. A consumer, yes, but trained professional, no! I am the kind of person who needs to feel incredibly informed before making an important business decision and as I was getting into the weeds of this new industry I felt uncomfortable with my lack of expertise. I asked ChatGPT to put together a learning plan for me–for ten minutes each day, I wanted to dig into the details of what I was doing. I told it what my goals were, where I felt my gaps in knowledge were, and what the most important things about this new venture were. It triangulated all of the information and put together a customized learning plan for me that has helped me tremendously. I feel more confident making decisions, leading team calls, and evaluating what we’re making.

I also use AI to help me do some research on competitive products for this new venture, for making basic slide decks, and to explain to me what all of the ingredients in my skincare products do. Personally, Kyle and I have used it to put together developmental schedules for Suede and to help us get organized with childcare related responsibilities. One tip that I’ve found really helpful is to say “Can you please ask me as many questions as you need to, one at a time, to be able to give me a recommendation with 95% confidence?” This pushes the model to ask smarter follow-up questions and return more precise recommendations.

As much as AI has been helpful to me and my business, the list of things I don’t use it for is far longer than what I do use it for. I don’t think I’ll ever use AI or ChatGPT for purely creative tasks. I take joy in writing my Substack posts, coming up with new recipes, and filming and editing my content. I also have a personal belief that creativity comes from the soul, so it’s hard for me to imagine that a definitionally soulless machine could truly create something as deep and meaningful as a human could. When I’m reading my favorite Substacks or looking at content online, I love the range of voices. I feel like I get to know my favorite writers through the uniquely imperfect way they craft their sentences and when AI writes everything, it loses that distinctive edge. I realize that there is probably content that I’ve encountered that’s created by AI and is so good that I don’t notice, but by and large I think I can usually tell when something has been created by a person vs. ChatGPT!

I’ll also never use AI to come up with recipes. Again, this is largely to do with the fact that recipe creation brings me so much joy. There are many parts of being a food content creator that I enjoy, but I think recipe development is my favorite. Even on days where I feel very spread thin or just generally uninspired, I don’t turn to ChatGPT. I’ll go for a quick walk, change tasks, or take a mental break to get back into the creative groove. I won’t use ChatGPT to respond to comments or DMs because I love the interaction with my community, and because I feel like people deserve a response from me, not AI. I’m not using ChatGPT for any part of my cookbook development. I know other authors who have, and while I envy how much time and money it likely saved them, I want to be as close to the cookbook creation process as possible and I’d rather spend extra time doing it myself or hire writers to collaborate with.

I know AI is a sensitive topic, especially for those of us working in creative fields. We haven’t even touched on the broader questions about how it’s reshaping industries and job security. But in my own business, I’ve found that drawing clear lines around how I use it helps me stay focused on what matters: doing meaningful work, staying close to my voice, and being in genuine connection with my community.

At the end of the day, I want my work to feel like it came from a real person. I want my recipes to reflect what I’m actually making in my kitchen. I want my Substack to sound like something I’d say to you over coffee. If I ever delegate too much of that–whether to a machine or even another person–I lose the thing that makes it mine.

I’m really curious to hear how you feel about it. Do you use it? How often, and for what?