AI has Leveled the Playing Field

Read on: My website

Read time: 2 Minutes

Today, stupidity sells incredibly well.

AI can, has, and will make everyone sound smart.

Everyone, in any subject, can be “wise.” Everyone is an “expert.” Everyone can produce polished, technically correct content in seconds, all at the palm of their hand. 

And while AI is getting better each and every day. this means AI users are getting better, too.

The tips and tricks are getting better; output is getting better.

On the other hand, the AI slop is getting easier and easier to spot too.

Was this newsletter forwarded to you?

AI tools such as OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity have scraped and indexed most of the open internet, getting almost everything that you can think of, ranging from books, company information, SEC filings, the news, presentations, the best route to get you from point A to point B, and everything in between. And it continues to take in information at the blink of an eye.

Users are specifically mastering the AI tool and feeding it better and better prompts, more data, to get to an answer. Depending on the context, this might work fine for whatever your output/project/task you are working on.

So with all the capabilities that AI now provides to you at your fingertips, it is also available to anyone, anywhere in the world, at any given moment.

Let’s dance.

How 2M+ Professionals Stay Ahead on AI

AI is moving fast and most people are falling behind. 

The Rundown AI keeps you ahead of the curve. 

It’s a free AI newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the latest AI news, and teaches you how to apply it in just 5 minutes a day.

Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses — tailored to your needs.

Sign up to start learning.

Playing Field

You now have a level playing field across your market and in business.

Your competition has this: established firms, up-and-coming firms, some with smaller budgets that you, some with much larger budgets than you, and companies you work with, all have this.

The differentiation between you and the company next to you is quickly shrinking.

Having AI tools is becoming the norm. 

With AI becoming the norm, it becomes the bare minimum expectation for your customer.

It’s no longer a competitive advantage.

The customers that you are selling to, or working with already, might have existing AI tools that they are already using. How they use them can be for a wide range of reasons.

You have your AI tools, I have mine, the customer has theirs, the competition has their bag of tricks, the list goes on.

We might share the same AI tools, you might have some cool AI tools that I don’t know about yet, and vice versa.

So, let’s not look at the AI tech and let’s look at the human element to this.

In this case, let’s say it is your customer.

The AI is not mastering the important inner workings of your customer that are out in the open. They are not mastering the layers, sublayers, of the market. The AI tool is mastering what they have access too and able to grab its hands on.

What do I mean by this?

• Think surface level vs. depth

• What I can see vs. what I can’t see

• What I know vs. what I don’t know

• What can I do with a computer vs. What I need to do in-person

• What requires building trust vs. what is common knowledge

Depth

Not everything is written down. There are the unwritten aspects of your customers, your competition, your market, your team, your business.

The institutional knowledge of the people who have been working in the deepest corners and toughest projects with the customers for years and know each other personally and professionally. They have people they know and trust, and keep it that way.

It’s not picking up on the cues of how relationships are molded at trade shows, through mutual introductions, happy hours, coffees, referrals from current customers over the years. Going through good times and bad, overcoming hurdles together, fixing problems when they arise, understanding that sometimes the customer IS wrong, picking the phone up at 8 p.m. because a customer has an emergency, and they support their customer anytime, anywhere.

It’s not reading the body language during an oral presentation to see who is awake, who is paying attention, or who is zoned out thinking about who to start at QB or WR this upcoming weekend for their fantasy football team (injuries this season are absolutely killing me…).

A timed presentation is a timed presentation. If you are allocated 3 minutes to present, then you have 3 minutes, and not a second more. Sure you can train and have an AI tool prepare you for a presentation, but under a high stress environment in front of evaluators/decision makers is a different story. Your confidence, your performance, and a deep understanding of your company’s overall capabilities can have a great impact on your overall evaluation.

It’s not reading that your account manager is the glue that holds your relationship together with your customer, as they support them on the ground day in and day out. They look out for their needs regardless of whether they have the solutions or not. They refer customers to qualified companies to make sure those companies look after the customer, not just themselves.

It’s not picking up on how policies are shaped through the inner workings of either a state office or on Capitol Hill. It might track the legislation, the PAC, and donations to the representatives, but it can’t depict or build the trust, credibility, and relationships between the lobbyists and lawmakers and staff. It won’t be able to break down the in-depth, nuanced conversations that happen in real time.

AI can draft surface-level talking points, but it can’t provide real-time, human interactive persuasion on “I need to react and advocate in the heat of the moment,” while accounting for unwritten rules and shifting power dynamics.

It’s not reading your confidence level as you present to your team, to your senior leadership, to your partners, or to your customer.

AI can help you make a great presentation; what it can’t do is tell you about the context of those who are speaking, how well they know the information, the customer, the confidence in their voices, and how they can execute on a current/future project. Practice does make perfect, so always prep, prep, prep!

All these elements do play a role in how you can improve your probability to win, how you deepen your account relationships, what separates you from your competitors, and much more.

While AI can create many areas that can support measurable efficiencies across your business at speed, quality, and cost-effectiveness, it does showcase the importance of making sure the human side stays incredibly important.

Take an audit of your overall process that you use AI for, review areas from your leads to those who present at a presentation, or speak at a conference, in front of customers, to submitting a proposal.

Let’s say you have only 1 or 2 good people who are good at public speaking, and they are the only ones that you rely on when you need to speak during a proposal evaluation or customer meeting. What happens if they are pre-disposed that day? How is your backup? How do they perform?

Or what happens if you are lobbying on an issue and you bring a coworker(s) with you to the Capitol Building? Are they able to discuss issues and engage on the spot with lawmakers and staff? How can they pivot, confidentially, and advocate on issues that are essential to your organization and your market? Can they stand the hotseat?

These are just two areas, but review the essential areas of your business to see where you need to develop core areas for long-term success.

See you next week.

Whenever You’re Ready, Here are 4 Ways I Can Help You:

1. Unlocking Hidden Potential – Reconnecting with Past Clients for Explosive Growth – Check out my free eBook on how you can find hidden gems in your past clients and help you crush your sales goals.

2. AI for Business Development – Download our free eBook on how you can effectively leverage AI prompts to your advantage. From properly setting up your preferred AI tool, to how to shape your prompts, save time, and get the outputs you are looking for.

3. Sales Resources at Your Fingertips – From tools, tips, demos, and how-tos, check out our Pages and content that can provide you with additional support, whether it be social selling, account management, or something else.

4. Cribworks Advisor Program – Want more than just resources? Reach out to me and see if our Advisor Program can help you scale your business.

Pat Miller’s – Fridays Off Newsletter

One idea a week for people who own a business, from Pat Miller, founder of the Small Business Owners Community and host of Businessing. Every issue opens with what I did with my Friday, then works …

Subscribe

Superhuman AI

Keep up with the latest AI news, trends, and tools in just 3 minutes a day. Join 1,500,000+ professionals.

Subscribe