Why This 16-Year Industry Veteran Says 2026 Is Make-or-Break for AI Marketing

The numbers don't lie, and they're more telling than most marketers realize.

According to Michael Stelzner's latest AI Marketing Industry Report—surveying over 730 marketing professionals—90% of marketers believe AI will fundamentally change their industry. Yet only 70% see it as an opportunity instead of a threat.

That 20% gap? It's not just a statistic. It's the dividing line between the Growth Architects who will scale in 2026 and those who'll get left behind in the digital dust.

The Hero Complex Is Sabotaging Your 2026 Success

Here's the confession most solopreneurs won't admit: while daily AI usage exploded from 37% to 60% in just one year, most are still using AI like a fancy spell-checker instead of the strategic business partner it can become.

The Hero Complex whispers that you can figure this out on your own, that you don't need to systematically integrate AI into your operations. But as Stelzner revealed in our conversation, there's a massive difference between using AI daily and using it strategically.

Think of it like the difference between owning a Ferrari and knowing how to race it. Most marketers have the keys—they're prompting ChatGPT for email rewrites and social media posts. But the winners in 2026 will be the ones who've built entire AI-powered operational systems that eliminate their admin drag.

We're Living Through a Creative Renaissance (And Most People Don't Realize It)

Stelzner made a profound observation during our interview: "I believe that we're at the beginning of a creative renaissance, and I call it a renaissance because you're a history buff. What happened during the Renaissance?"

We had a complete explosion of art forms—not just painting, but music, literature, everything.

The same thing is happening right now with AI. We have:

• Solopreneurs creating professional videos without showing their faces
• Consultants using AI avatars to scale their thought leadership
• Marketers building custom AI agents that work weekends and holidays
• Business owners expanding their service offerings without additional headcount

The Renaissance wasn't just about new tools—it was about new possibilities. AI isn't just making us more efficient; it's unlocking creative potential we didn't know we had.

The 3-Year Window That Changes Everything

Here's what should keep you up at night (or get you excited, depending on your perspective): we're only three years into the AI era, yet adoption patterns show we have maybe three to five more years before AI integration becomes table stakes instead of competitive advantage.

Stelzner's data shows that 41% of marketers have been using AI for less than a year. In traditional business terms, that means we're still in the early adopter phase—but that window is closing fast.

The companies that will dominate in 2026 are the ones building AI-powered systems now, not the ones waiting to "see how it plays out."

From Tactical Tasks to Strategic Systems

The biggest mistake solopreneurs make is treating AI like a better intern instead of a digital teammate. Stelzner's team at Social Media Examiner moved their entire organization to Google Gemini and created 37 custom AI assistants (Gems) for specific business functions.

Think about that for a moment: 37 specialized AI teammates, each designed to handle tasks that previously required human attention or external contractors.

This is what I call the Systems Mindset in action—moving beyond scattered AI usage to building integrated workflows that compound your capabilities.

Here's the framework Stelzner's team used:

1. Identify the tasks you don't enjoy doing (these are perfect for AI delegation)
2. Create specialized AI assistants for specific functions (research, content creation, project management)
3. Build company-wide standards and training (so everyone speaks the same AI language)
4. Incentivize adoption and sharing (they gave $100 Amazon gift cards for each new AI assistant created)

The Economic Reality That's Creating Millionaire Solopreneurs

While big companies are using AI to "satisfy shareholders and increase productivity" (often meaning layoffs), smart solopreneurs are using AI to compete with those same big companies without the overhead.

Stelzner mentioned a fascinating podcast called "Shell Game" featuring an entrepreneur who's built an entire AI company where he's the only human employee. His AI team communicates through Slack, builds products, and operates like a real organization.

This isn't science fiction—this is happening right now.

The economic principle is simple: if AI can help you create a service in one hour instead of ten, but that service is worth ten hours to your client, you charge the ten-hour rate. Your profit margins explode while your stress levels plummet.

Your 2026 Action Plan (Start Today, Scale Tomorrow)

If you're feeling behind, here's Stelzner's practical advice: create a virtual version of yourself as an AI assistant.

Step 1: Take an Enneagram test (free online) to understand your personality type
Step 2: Create an AI assistant with this prompt framework:

• "Your task is to become a virtual equivalent of me"
• "Your job is to encourage me when I'm down and spur me when I'm not exercising a growth mindset"
• Include your Enneagram type, role, and core values
• Attach your vision/mission documents

Step 3: Pin this AI assistant and return to it whenever you're stuck, overwhelmed, or need strategic guidance

This isn't just about productivity—it's about having a strategic partner who knows you better than anyone else and can challenge your assumptions when you need it most.

The Conference That's Betting Big on AI's Future

Stelzner isn't just predicting the AI future—he's building it. Social Media Marketing World 2026 will feature AI Business World, a sub-conference dedicated entirely to practical AI implementation.

With 20 of the world's leading AI experts teaching everything from AI video creation to workflow automation, it's designed for the Growth Architects who refuse to be left behind.

The fact that one of the industry's most established conferences is dedicating 50,000 square feet to AI education tells you everything you need to know about where we're heading.

The Choice That Defines Your Next Chapter

We're at an inflection point that happens maybe once in a generation. The marketers and solopreneurs who embrace AI as a strategic system—not just a tactical tool—will find themselves with an unfair advantage that compounds monthly.

The ones who wait, who let the Hero Complex convince them they can figure it out later, will spend 2026 watching their competitors scale past them.

The data is clear. The opportunity is massive. The window is closing.

What's your move?

Ready to build your AI-powered operational system? The AI Solopreneur OS helps Growth Architects like you eliminate admin drag and focus on high-value work that scales revenue. Learn more about joining our curated community of AI-powered solopreneurs →

Here's the reality check nobody wants to hear - while 90% of marketers believe AI will fundamentally change their industry, 70% see it as an opportunity instead of a threat. That gap? It's the Hero Complex whispering in your ear that you can figure this out on your own, that you don't need to adapt your systems now. But here's what the latest industry report reveals: 2026 isn't just another year of gradual change - it's the year that will separate the marketers and business owners who scale from those who get left behind in the digital dust.

I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome back my longtime colleague and friend, Michael Stelzner - the mastermind behind Social Media Examiner, the empire builder who created Social Media Marketing World (the industry's largest conference), and the visionary founder of the brand new AI Business World conference. With over 16 years of industry research under his belt and millions of podcast downloads, Michael just dropped his second annual AI Marketing Industry Report surveying over 730 marketers. If you want to know where AI marketing is heading in 2026 and how to position yourself ahead of the curve, there's literally no one better to learn from than the guy who's been tracking these trends since before most of us knew what social media marketing even meant!

The AI Hat Podcast host Mike Allton asked Michael Stelzner about:

✨ The 2026 Separation Strategy - Discover the specific mindset shift that separates AI winners from the 30% who'll be left behind.

✨ Beyond Daily Usage Growth - Learn why jumping from 37% to 60% daily usage isn't enough to guarantee success.

✨ The Opportunity Recognition Framework - Master the difference between seeing AI as threat versus competitive advantage.

Learn more about Michael Stelzner

• Connect with Michael Stelzner on LinkedIn
• Follow Michael Stelzner on Facebook

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• Social Media Examiner
• Social Media Marketing World
• AI Business World - save $100!
• 2025 AI Marketing Industry Report
• AI Explored Podcast
• Paul Roetzer
• MAICON
• Bring Mike Allton to your event to speak on AI for Sales or Marketing
• Shell Game Podcast
• AI Solopreneur OS Community
• Magai
• Suno
• Nano Banana
• AI Work Buddy
• Follow Mike Allton on Threads and get more AI tips

Full Transcript

(lightly edited)

Why This 16-Year Industry Veteran Says 2026 Is Make-or-Break for AI Marketing

[00:00:00] Michael Stelzner: We're only three years into this thing. Okay? And this is where a lot of people I think, can get tripped up. All you hear about now is AI, AI, AI, especially if you track the tech news and, and all the users and stuff. But there is still very, very slow adoption. What I mean by that is, it's one thing to say, I use AI every day.

[00:00:19] It's another thing to say, I use AI to do all of my work every day, and I'm managing AI assistants and AI agents. It's another thing to say that I've got a whole bunch of AI staffers that are working for me full-time or on the clock. So the the, the adoption is slow. For those of you that listen to Mike's show and have been listening for a while, this is an opportunity for you because I can assure you, 'cause I saw how long it took for social media to take root.

[00:00:46] Okay? We are so early right now. I want everybody to understand that. Okay. This is an incredible opportunity for you to be in your business because there's a lot of people that just cannot keep up with all this stuff. The innovation, the rate of innovation is happening so fast. I used to say the social industry was the fastest changing industry in the world.

[00:01:08] Well, we both, and that's not true anymore. Okay? AI changes way faster, and that's really good news for us because all you gotta do is be a couple steps ahead of other people to be very successful in this space.

[00:01:18] Mike Allton: Mike's got The Hat, the AI kind. Unlocking power in business, you'll find. Cut through the hype, explore the tech. Every week, new ideas to check.

[00:01:43] Allton leads us on a digital quest. AI secrets, he'll always invest. Tune in tight, don't miss a beat. Knowledge, groove, keep you on your feet. Listen up! To the AI flow.

[00:02:06] Business growth, here we go. Cuttin' edge insights, that's the plan. With The AI Hat, you'll understand.

[00:02:27] Greetings program. Welcome to The AI Hat Podcast, the resource for established solopreneurs who are ready to stop being the bottleneck in their own business. Each week we architect the simple AI operational systems that eliminate admin drag and reclaim your time, freeing you to focus on the high value work that truly scales your revenue.

[00:02:44] I'm your host, Mike Allton. Subscribe and let's build your empire together.

[00:02:49] But here's the reality check nobody wants to hear. While 90% of marketers believe AI will fundamentally change their industry, 70% see it as an opportunity instead of a threat. That gap, it's the hero complex whispering in your ear that you can figure this out on your own, that you don't need to adapt your systems now.

[00:03:07] But here's what the latest industry report reveals. 2026 it isn't just another year of gradual change, it's the year that will separate the marketers and business owners who scale from those who get left behind in the digital dust. And I'm absolutely thrilled to welcome back my longtime friend and colleague, Michael Stelzner, the Mastermind behind Social media examiner, the Empire Builder who created social media and marketing world, the industry's largest conference, and the visionary founder of the brand new AI Business World Conference with over 16 years of industry research under his belt and millions of podcast downloads.

[00:03:41] Mike just dropped his second annual AI Marketing Industry Report surveying over 730 marketers. If you wanna know where AI marketing is headed in 2026 and how to position yourself. Ahead of the curve. There's literally no one better to learn from them. The guy who's been tracking these trends since before most of us knew was social media marketing even meant, Hey, Mike, welcome to the show.

[00:04:03] Michael Stelzner: Hey, Mike, great to be on your show.

[00:04:06] Mike Allton: This is a real treat. I was on your show and now you get to come on mine. This is fantastic and I really appreciate it. I know you don't do a lot of podcast interviews, so I'm really excited to dig into this with you.

[00:04:16] Michael Stelzner: Well, it's great to, it's great to be on another show for another guy who I respect and, and, and it doesn't hurt that we have the same name,

[00:04:24] Mike Allton: right?

[00:04:24] This'll be easy. Uh, although the transcript Gods are gonna have a real issue with speaker one and speaker two, both being named Mike. But hey, let's dive in your 2025 AI Marketing Industry Report. Like I said at the outset, it showed 90% of marketers believing AI is gonna change their industry. 70% see it as opportunity.

[00:04:42] That's creating an interesting gap. And what do you think that means for solopreneurs or marketers headed into next year?

[00:04:49] Michael Stelzner: Well, it's a great question and first of all, for a lot of people out there, uh, data and industry makes your eyes roll backwards. I know sometimes that can be the case for me, but I wanna kind of explain why this matters for everyone who's listening.

[00:05:02] As Mike mentioned, we've been doing industry reports for the social marketing industry since 2008. I believe it's a long time. And. We started our second annual report, uh, which we published, I believe in October of 2025, just dedicated to ai. We started to see the trends a couple years ago where marketers were very, very interested in AI's AI along with entrepreneurs and creators.

[00:05:26] And, um, this study was really interesting across multiple metrics. First of all. Most marketers believe, as I'm sure everyone who's listening right now, that AI is gonna fundamentally change the way the industry in which they operate behaves. And a lot of people, when they look out at the industry as a whole, they say, okay, I already start to see the changes.

[00:05:48] For example, the way we used to do things is becoming done differently. There's. A lot more people utilizing AI tools instead of hiring consultants or agencies, for example. And that is shifting. And there's a lot of people inside of businesses that are expected to learn how to use ai, and that is shifting as well.

[00:06:06] So why do 70% see it as an opportunity and why do they not see it as a threat? This is a really interesting thing because first of all. 23% of the, of the people that we surveyed said they didn't know what to make as to whether or not AI will create new opportunities or not. And 70% said, yeah, for sure.

[00:06:27] This is gonna be a big opportunity. And 30% of that chunk that of the pie said strongly agree. So what I think is happening here, Mike, is we have marketers who are optimists. Like I am and like you are, we both have shows dedicated to ai. We know that AI is fundamentally going to change jobs, but I think a lot of marketers are, um, basically, for lack of better words, taking the optimistic road. And we listen to lots of podcasts from our peers in the industry who are saying stuff that like, Hey, this is actually gonna take away jobs. It's gonna fundamentally alter the whole world. And there's a lot of people that operate from a position of fear or uncertainty.

[00:07:06] And I think a lot of people right now that are marketers are accepting the reality that AI is fundamentally going to change. Um, but they just don't know exactly how much it's going to change. For their industry and ultimately for them. And this is where I think it gets interesting, Mike, you know this, there are certain industries that are really slow to adopt change.

[00:07:23] You know, we both came from the social marketing industry. There are still people today that have not embraced social marketing. There are still businesses, right? Yeah, yeah. Local businesses that have not embraced it. So I think. I think some people here are being realists and they know that it's gonna be a slow roll.

[00:07:37] Especially working with really, really big brands, change management. It's complicated. You've had people come on your show talking about this. Yeah. And this is where it gets interesting. Also, on the job front, only 36% of the people we surveyed. Felt like AI is gonna impact, um, their jobs, which I think is really interesting.

[00:07:57] So, I don't know. I, I think, I think there's a lot of ignorance. I'm gonna say that I just don't think marketers are aware of the tidal wave that's coming.

[00:08:07] Mike Allton: I, I couldn't agree more. I mean, that's literally why I started the show. I had my aha moment listening to Paul Roetzer. He was paraphrasing and talking about Sam Altman's quote, this was a couple of years ago where Sam had said 95% of marketing is gonna be taken over by ai and I heard Paul talking about that. And it was one of those things where it stopped me cold and I'm like, crap, I'm a marketer. How's that gonna impact me? So I dove in. This was two years ago, and I decided, you know what? Nobody that I'm friends with, all the marketers that we know and and love in these industry, they weren't thinking about ai.

[00:08:40] They weren't talking about ai, at least most of the ones that I would talk to. So I started to start the podcast. To scratch my own itch, but also to help them, because here's the difference, you know, you and I have been living through a lot of technical changes in online marketing. We've watched social networks come and go, Google Plus, Blab, Periscope, right?

[00:08:58] And so I think a lot of marketers like us have been conditioned not to buy into the hype, not to, you know, go all in on certain things that are new and they're shiny, which I understand. I'm a historian. I went to school for history. I studied European history and classical history, and I know what happened in the last three industrial revolutions, and I can see what's happening with this fourth industrial revolution.

[00:09:22] I know jobs are going to be lost or changed. The World Economic Forum predicts tens of millions of jobs are going to be disrupted or impacted over the next, now just three and a half to four years. They also predict many new jobs are gonna be created, which is pretty cool. So I'm relieved to see that you've been tracking AI daily usage and you've seen it exploding.

[00:09:47] Uh, the stat that you shared was it's gone from 37% to 60% in just one year. So that's a bit of a relief to me 'cause then I'm seeing Oh, okay, cool. A lot of my marketing colleagues are now understanding they've gotta start to figure this out. But for our solopreneurs and marketers in the audience, and maybe they feel overwhelmed, what do you think the difference is between just using it daily and actually using it strategically in a way that actually might protect their jobs?

[00:10:13] Michael Stelzner: You know, before I answer that, I wanna, I, to those of you that are new to ai, I, I wanna encourage you that you are not alone. In the study we just did more than 40% were 12 months or less into utilizing AI tools. So, and 17% of them were, were six months or less. So the good news is we are very early. This industry, as of this recording, is almost exactly three years old from the day chat GPT rolled out on November 30th three years ago from today. And that is encouraging, but at the same time, the fact that so many marketers are leveraging AI every single day is, is really, really interesting. And I think that. I don't think a lot of people are using it strategically.

[00:11:00] I think that they're, they're using it to do very, very simple tasks. And Mike, I've witnessed this over the last couple years at Social Media Mar Marketing World two years ago, which would've been 2024, there was nobody sitting down at the AI tables. Like when I say nobody, maybe like one or two people.

[00:11:18] And we have theme tables where people can sit and I couldn't believe hardly anybody was talking about it because chat GPT had just rolled out, like I feel like within the last four months, you know? And I just couldn't believe it. And then even, in 2025 and I might be having my numbers all mis mixed up, but, but it, it, I was shocked.

[00:11:35] And in 2025 what we did was we rolled out a entire, like nonstop, two full days of content. It was a completely different shift. We had a room that could see 700 people and that room was packed out almost every single day. So something had happened, and I think what happened was that, that the, what I heard in the early days was people tried Chat GPT. It was horrible. And they just kind of assumed it was never gonna get better and they never came back to it. But then they started hearing all of the innovation that's been coming. Right? And if we think about where we're at today, it's not just Chat GPT anymore. Right? And we're gonna get into some of that a little bit later, but we've got Claude, we've got Gemini, we've got Grok, and we've got Meta and just all these platforms that are coming out with tools and it's being integrated into everything and now people are utilizing it. But I still think even today, and I know this from my own company as well, like I've got 19 people that work for me.

[00:12:30] Um, I track what they do and it's kind of shocking to me how little they do. So to be strategic is different than to just use it to do a very simple task, like, make this more precise, or here's an outline, write an email with it. And, um, what we started doing inside of Social Media Examiner to make it more strategic is, first of all, we moved our entire company to Google Gemini, and the reason we moved to Google Gemini is because it's just really, really good. And fascinatingly enough, the same day that Gemini 3.0 rolled out was the same day we had planned to do the training internally, so I had to upgrade all my slides, but Gemini has gotten so darn good. And the reason why we moved to Gemini is because we wanted people to create Gems, which are the equivalent of Custom Gpt.

[00:13:17] And what's really cool about Gemini is, the key word here is integration. Okay. It integrates. We are a Google Workspace shop, so it integrates with our sheets and our docs and our drives and all the other things that we use because most of the work that we do outside of Asana is actually in Google and side note, it also integrates with Asana.

[00:13:38] The brand new version of Gemini has full Asana integration, which is really sexy and cool. So, what we did was we trained all of our staff, first of all on how to use Google Gemini by creating a virtual equivalent of themselves. And we said, okay, here's the spreadsheet where your Enneagram is. Here is like, um, a prompt that you can use.

[00:13:57] Then ask AI to improve it and then edit it, and then go ahead and attach our company vision and mission document, and then just save this as a pinned chat that you can go back to. That was like our first very simple task that we did. Then we trained them on how to create Gems. Which are much more sophisticated.

[00:14:14] And we gave all of our employees an incentive, which is for every Gem you create and put in the spreadsheet, we're gonna go ahead and enter your name to win a hundred dollars Amazon gift, gift card. And everybody was incentivized to create a Gem and everyone but one person created a Gem. And we had like 37 Gems that people had created.

[00:14:32] And, um, they created some like, uh, and their task was to create a Gem to do a task that is something they don't enjoy doing. So, for example, a social media news researcher, my editorial team created, which makes it really easy for them to curate news. Talent scout for our pod, for each of our podcasts.

[00:14:49] My executive assistant, hmm. Now a talent scout that goes out and finds original talent, which is really cool. And you start to think about how Google search and deep research and all this stuff integrates a creative assistant for our graphic designer. So this creative assistant will actually mock up thumbnail designs based on the podcast interviews, uh, a research strategist for placing me on other people's podcasts.

[00:15:13] So that's kind of cool. The research strategist can go out there and find shows that are non-obvious shows to place me on other people's podcasts. A um. Timestamp generator for our trainings. So inside of our membership, we have trainings and there's key moments that happen. And because Gemini is multimodal, we can upload or link to a video that's inside of our drive and it will automatically create the timestamps and Enneagram coach.

[00:15:38] You begin to see the applications here, there. This is the way. You know that I think people can start thinking strategically, which is how can you use AI to help you do very specific point tasks that, that maybe you think are challenging? And we even created Mike, our own internal gem. That, that kind of get guided them through step by step on how to create a gem.

[00:15:59] So we would ask them one question at a time using a model, and then it would come up with a, a, a section and then it would finalize the whole section and then it would allow them to effectively just take that, attach that into a brand new gem, and um, all of a sudden they've got something. And now it is a shared resource.

[00:16:14] And the other big advantage to gems, as you know, is that you can share it with everyone inside the company securely, which is what I really love.

[00:16:21] Mike Allton: There's so much about this that I love that I wanna unpack. Starting at, at the, the outset of what you said I was with you and many other marketers where I had used AI before Chat GPT and had been completely unimpressed, uh, using tools like conversion ai, which is now, you know, they went to Jarvis and then quickly changed to Jasper and they're a fantastic tool now. But back pre Chet GPEs, you know, released in November, 2022, you know, it was a tool designed to try to give you marketing copy, like ad copy or blog post.

[00:16:51] Yeah.

[00:16:51] Michael Stelzner: And it was, it was very okay. It was okay.

[00:16:55] Mike Allton: It was all right. You know, and it was very much, you had a dropdown for what Voice? And it was always like somebody famous, like a Gary V. Well, why would I publish a social media post in Gary V's. Voice, assuming I even could. That would not be great for me as a market.

[00:17:08] Michael Stelzner: Own expletives for sure.

[00:17:11] Mike Allton: That's for sure. So. There was definitely a change there that, that we went through and then, you know, to, to fast forward to today, I absolutely adore the strategic guidance that you're giving your team. Don't just go out and find your own tools, because a lot of companies are doing that.

[00:17:28] They don't provide the guidance, they don't provide the, the financial and the training support. So folks, you know, they stumble into Chat GPT or heaven forbid, Grok, and they're using it for, streamline an email, streamline on social media, post that kind of odds and ends. But you've given them the keys to a professional grade tool and you've told them, let's figure out together some, some actual tasks that are important.

[00:17:52] Right that are going to save you time, they're integral to your job, and then you could use that time to do other things in your work. That's terrific. It's funny 'cause you know, you know, I, I've been using Gemini now for a year and a half or so, and most of the teams that I'm coaching, they're either in the Google ecosystem or in their Microsoft ecosystem.

[00:18:12] And thankfully for those Microsoft folks, Copilt come a long way, the last six months as well. So both of those circles of users are able to tap into these really advanced tools with incredible integrations. I was on a call yesterday with folks who were in Excel and they, they have this issue where they're always changing this pricing sheet in Excel with, and it's just got just a spreadsheet with all their products and their pricing.

[00:18:39] And they're always losing track of the changes. I said, well, you know, Copilot can see the revision history. You just have to ask Copilot, what were the changes since the last revision or the last month or whatever. It'll tell you it's terrific, right? All these fun things you gem do. Now,

[00:18:53] Michael Stelzner: Gemini, I do the exact same thing with, uh, sheets too, I would imagine.

[00:18:56] Mike Allton: Exactly. Gemini could do the same thing in Sheets or, or Word or in a Google drive. So, you know, we, we've kind of talked about how you and I have been in this industry for, a couple decades now. I've been attending your fantastic conference, and I remember year to year you start off with this terrific keynote.

[00:19:12] Based on data, what have you seen over the past year in terms of trends? You've been studying this now for a decade and a half or more. How do you feel like this AI shift compares to some of the previous industry transformations? You know, like we've talked about, Blab or just social media overall.

[00:19:27] Michael Stelzner: Yeah. Well, first of all, I think that this is the most radical shift that, um, we've ever seen. And it kind of reminds me of the early days of social media and it was really fascinating because there is, you know this, Mike. 'cause we were together at, at a, at an event recently at MAICON, Paul Roetzer's event.

[00:19:47] There is kind of a an excitement. All of a sudden, the, the world of marketing has not seen a lot of change in the last many years. And now with the introduction of generative AI and all the cool things that you can do, there is this kind of excitement that's bringing people back. And wanting to learn, and it's injecting a layer of creativity, I would say, into our work that I have not seen in a long, long time.

[00:20:17] It reminds me of the early days of social, because in the early days of social, the promise was that. Like I, when we started Social Media Marketing World in 2013, you know, this was a big deal. During that timeframe, a lot of marketers were struggling with figuring out a way to accomplish their objectives, which is to get more exposure, more leads, and more sales and social media back then delivered on it.

[00:20:41] Because back then you actually got reach and exposure and all the benefits that came from social media, and it was palpable, it was valuable. And you had a lot of people that were, um. A lot of moms that were coming back to work, right? 'cause their kids were a little bit older and it just created a whole new generation of workers that were not there previously because it was a new industry.

[00:21:03] Well, guess what? I'm seeing the exact same thing happen again, Mike. Some of the biggest influencers in the world of AI are people that got let go of their jobs in the last three years, they were, for whatever reason, laid off or they lost their job during COVID and they had some extra time on their hands to go deep into this, and all of a sudden it unlocks something creatively inside of them.

[00:21:30] Because what AI does, the obvious thing it does is it allows us to get our tedious tasks done more quickly and efficiently. But the non-obvious thing that it does is it frees us up for deeper work. And what I mean by deeper work is it enables us to actually be more strategic. And how many of us want to be strategic but are buried in tactical garbage, like probably most of us, right?

[00:21:59] Um, and we know there's so much more of an impact. We, we, we could make, if only we had time, right? Well, guess what? This actually compounds. The more you use ai, the more time you have. It's actually true, and I found it to be true, and I bet you found it to be true as well. And what you do with that time is kind of up to you.

[00:22:19] But what I love to do with that time is I love to get creative. So now all of a sudden. I can safely have multiple podcasts going on at once, just like you could Mike. I also have the ability to consider doing things with my "limited" staff that I would've had to hire more people for in the past. It's actually enabled me to actually go out and hire more people because the creative stuff fueled the opportunities that that made it so that I would actually hire more people rather than laying off people.

[00:22:48] And, and I do feel like, um. I do feel like there's a level of giddiness that I have not seen before. Like I could not believe the level of excitement people had to learn all the things. 'cause if you think about what we have access to right now, we have access to AI music, right? You've got this incredible jingle that I always fast forward through because it gets stuck in my brain.

[00:23:11] But I know that was done by ai, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you've got this incredible script that you read at the beginning of each podcast that, because you're such a good communicator, it almost sounds perfect, right? That's why I messaged you once and said, Hey, have you used AI voice cloning? 'cause I actually thought you were voice cloning yourself, but you weren't.

[00:23:30] Okay? Because like, you're just so good at reading scripts. I, I'm jealous. But like now all of a sudden you've got time if you want to, to do extra stuff. Like what you're doing right now, this is an extra thing that you might not have time to do if AI didn't make it possible. So I do see that we're at the beginning of a creative renaissance, and I call it a renaissance because you're a history buff.

[00:23:55] What happened during the Renaissance?

[00:23:57] Mike Allton: Yeah. We had a complete explosion of different kinds of art forms. Not just, painting, but music, literature, everything.

[00:24:04] Michael Stelzner: And I believe that's happening right now before our eyes. We have people that didn't know that they could create video that are created incredible videos that are AI generated, right?

[00:24:18] We have people that, for whatever reason, are anxious about showing, uh, themselves on camera, and they've created a version of themselves. That sounds like them and looks like them. And now they're pumping out content and they're thought leaders because they're using their AI avatars to do it. We've got people now that are, um, doing videos where they're not showing up on camera at all.

[00:24:40] It's just their voice and they're using AI to rapidly edit these videos. Just I think I, I really do think, like, as a creative person, I feel like I finally have permission to play, and I think that's really, really important. I don't know. What's your thoughts?

[00:24:56] Mike Allton: Oh yeah, I, I absolutely agree, and you're right.

[00:24:58] This, this show is a terrific example. This is a lot of people don't know. The actual third time I had tried to do a podcast that was just mine on my own. The first two died after just 10 or 12 episodes because it was so much work. So little return. You know, podcasting is different from a lot of other creative mediums.

[00:25:17] You don't get the numbers here that you might get with other kinds of mediums, and it can be disheartening and so on. Uh, but here now your episode 108, at no time in my past would I've ever assumed or said you're gonna do over a hundred episodes, Mike Allton, no, that absolutely would not have come up. And now, you know, to your point, I'm thinking about, you know, 2026, probably gonna release a new book, probably gonna host my own virtual event as a solopreneur.

[00:25:40] Doing all these things on my own, still having a full-time job where I've got other things going on

[00:25:46] Michael Stelzner: that would've been impossible to do before. Right,

[00:25:48] Mike Allton: right. Absolutely impossible. No way.

[00:25:50] Michael Stelzner: Now here's a couple more things to add to this. There is still we're only three years into this thing, okay? And this is where a lot of people I think can get tripped up.

[00:25:59] All you hear about now is ai, ai, ai, especially if you track the tech news and, and all the users and stuff. But there is still very, very slow adoption. What I mean by that is it's one thing to say, I use AI every day. It's another thing to say I use AI to do all of my work every day, and I'm managing AI assistants and AI agents.

[00:26:22] It's another thing to say that I've got a whole bunch of AI staffers that are working for me full-timer on the clock. Like we have an in-house developer and he has what I call a Thing One, Two, Three, Four, and Five, which are actually not people. There are AI developers that are coding. They don't sleep, they work the weekends, and they're very economical and we're innovating on, on, on our, on stuff that frankly, in, in the past would've cost us a fortune.

[00:26:47] So the, the, the adoption is slow. For those of you that listen to Mike's show and have been listening for a while, this is an opportunity for you because I can assure you, 'cause I saw how long it took for social media to take root, okay. I started Social Media Examiner in oh nine. Okay. I was late at least three years late.

[00:27:06] I figure because like, I think it was oh three or oh six when most of the big social platforms came out. I didn't launch till oh nine. We are so early. We are so early right now. I want everybody to understand that, okay, this is an incredible opportunity for you to be in your business. If for, well, I know not everybody's the solo entrepreneur, but, but if you are like Mike and you have another job, you know what I mean?

[00:27:30] This is your opportunity to be the person in your business, or this is your opportunity to be the person for other businesses. Okay? Because there's a lot of people that just cannot keep up with all this stuff. The innovation, the rate of innovation is happening so fast. I used to say the social industry was the fastest change in the industry, in the world.

[00:27:50] Well, we both know that's not true anymore. Okay. AI changes way faster, and that's really good news for us because all you gotta do is be a couple of steps ahead of other people to be very successful in this space. So, I think, I think we are legitimately looking at three more years, at least until, maybe even five more years until we get to everyone utilizing AI every day and everything. I just think the resistant is so high, and especially in really, really big businesses, they just move really, really slow and, and, and learning this stuff. It's not simple. Wouldn't you agree?

[00:28:24] Mike Allton: Oh yeah. That is, that is spot on.

[00:28:26] Particularly when we're not limiting to just i'm talking about marketers. When we broaden it to all businesses and all departments of those businesses, I'm talking, you know, I'm doing workshops for like large manufacturing companies, so I'm talking to sales folks, operations folks, product engineers, and so on.

[00:28:42] Utilization is nowhere near the numbers you're seeing in these marketing surveys. You know, I'm talking to folks who literally, yesterday was the first time they ever prompted an LLM, which for you and I, it's kind of mind blowing. I'm like, really? What were you doing all of last year? You know, and I'm not trying to put them down, but I'm like, wow, really?

[00:29:00] You know, and it's also varying by country. I'm doing a lot of trainings in, in Europe and a lot of European countries are way behind where we are here in, in the United States. I, I want to come back to the jobs conversation though for a second because we touched on that earlier. And, and you kind of even mentioned folks getting laid off for other reasons, uh, which is absolutely true, particularly in this economy.

[00:29:22] But yet your report mentioned, I think only 36% were actually worried about losing their jobs, being displaced by the jobs, that sort of thing. What do you think that they should know, either the marketers, the entrepreneurs listening, what do you think they should know about AI's role in their business growth to help them kind of prepare for what's coming?

[00:29:44] Michael Stelzner: Okay. Well, there's a couple things. First of all, there's lots of people that have different viewpoints on this, so I'm gonna share what my view is. And my view isn't necessarily the same as everyone else's, but, but I will share this. There's a lot of people, like my brother works for major, he's a HR guy.

[00:30:01] He's in the board rooms of some really big businesses and, and, um, many big companies are actually looking to use AI as an opportunity to satisfy shareholders and, uh, increase productivity and, and let people go. And, um, I think that that's going to be a problem for people working at big businesses. But I think people working at small businesses that have a savvy boss at the top understand like what small businesses are doing is they're taking the stance that I'm taking, which is we're gonna get our staff trained up in AI so that we don't have to hire a lot more people. But we're gonna expect everyone to use AI to improve their work, which is one of the company expectations we have here at Social Media Examiner.

[00:30:45] Use AI to improve your work and. When we set that expectation, we make it very clear that we are not looking to replace you with ai. Instead we're expecting you to accomplish more, which is going to help the vision and mission of the company be achieved. And and we know because we are out there training and talking to the world's leading experts across my AI explored podcast and AI business World Conference and all the stuff that we're doing in our AI business society. We know that there's massive advantages for all employees who embrace this stuff. So, um, that's why I think a lot of people aren't really super concerned, but the fact that 36% are concerned, I still think that's good and healthy, that they should be concerned, because I believe that everybody should use this as like a, yeah.

[00:31:31] I've got to learn AI because I'm only gonna become more valuable to my employer or future employer or clients if I learn ai. But this is where the solo operator, I'm gonna spin this. If you are a super small business owner or your side hustling like Mike is I think this gives you a massive unfair advantage because now you can use AI to do almost every single role that you can imagine. And it, it's pretty crazy. Uh, I'm listening to a podcast and I'm gonna look up the name of it in just a second, but it's this. Fast. It's called Shell Game. Fascinating podcast, episode two. It started with this guy who is using AI audio stuff and now he's created an AI company and he's the only employee in the company and he is hired all these quote unquote AI experts, which are actually not humans.

[00:32:26] And they talk to him and they interact with him and they have Slack channel discussions and they're actually building an actual company for him. And um, this is really cool because like. You know what we know about entrepreneurship, and I know this 'cause I've been an entrepreneur for a long time.

[00:32:40] Usually when you're a a solopreneur, you usually have a domain expertise in one area. Usually it's either marketing or it's sales, or it's technical. Those are usually the three areas where a lot of people start businesses and if you have expertise in any of those three areas, where you need support typically is operationally right.

[00:32:58] You need support typically to help keep you organized and to help make sure stuff is on task. And that's where you can design these AI agents and AI tools and Gemini and all this kind of stuff, and custom GPTs to kind of automate a lot of this work. And I do feel like the other thing, which is the ultimate deliverable that a lot of small businesses offer, typically a small business in the beginning, is creating a service.

[00:33:25] And usually that service. Is priced based on the value to the end customer. And if AI can help you create that service in one hour instead of 10 hours, but it's worth 10 hours to the end recipient, then you're gonna charge that higher rate. Why wouldn't you? Right. And I feel like AI now allows. Small businesses to increase the number of customers or to go to their existing customers and add extra ancillary related services.

[00:33:54] So if you're in the marketing niche and you, you offer marketing consulting, you could now all of a sudden expand to AI training, right? Or you could expand to sales enablement or you could expand to lead nurturing. You know, once it comes in, there's all sorts of cool things. 'cause typically, you know, that would go over to a sales department.

[00:34:15] So I do feel like it's gonna be really easy for small businesses to add on services and keep adding on services without necessarily headcount. And, and then once they start getting enough revenue, they could decide whether they want to hire real humans to manage the ai. 'cause that's really where we're going.

[00:34:33] Future jobs are gonna be ai agent and AI assistant managers. What's your thoughts on that, Mike?

[00:34:39] Mike Allton: Oh, I could not agree more. This is the exact kind of thing that we're unpacking in my community, AI Solopreneur OS, because I've been working in corporate for a couple decades now. Like you, you know, we're using management systems and frameworks like EOS and OKRs and these kinds of things, which are terrific when you have a team.

[00:34:58] When you don't have a team. I'm the CEO of my organization, which means I'm the visionary typically, right? There's nobody sitting here as an integrator in the EOS model who can say no to me. The dogs are here. They don't say no to me, they just listen. So the, I don't have that as a solopreneur, but with the AI assistance as you're talking about, you can build an AI team that can fit certain roles and it's fantastic.

[00:35:23] And I love what you're talking about, uh, with all these things. Folks. We're talking with Michael Stelzner about his experiences, both in his interviews on AI Explored and what the event that he's got coming up, and of course, the survey that he's done, which is fantastic, giving us roadmaps and guide marks for next year.

[00:35:39] We're gonna come back and talk about that conference more in just a few minutes. But first, a quick word from our sponsor.

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[00:36:43] So, Mike, I wanna talk about your event but before I do, lemme drop a quick technical note since you brought it up. You, you talked about how I used AI to create the music for the opening jingle that everybody heard at the, at the outset of the show, I used a tool called Suno, which was fantastic.

[00:36:57] I told it what my show was about and I selected a couple of genres of music. I, I think I basically picked electric blues and it created two or four tracks at once and allowed me to choose between 'em, and I think the second one I just loved. That's what I'm using. It created the lyrics. Uh, so if you guys go back and listen to that intro where they're talking about me and The AI Hat Podcast, Suno created that based on the, just a little bit of information that I gave it.

[00:37:24] But the other cool thing with Suno was that I was able to strip out the voice and have just an instrumental

[00:37:32] Michael Stelzner: track. Is that what, which I could use because I was rocking.

[00:37:34] Mike Allton: That's what we were just listening to. Yeah. So you know those, if you go back and listen to that Magai ad, the instrumental track for that is just a different section of the instrumental jingle because Suno will create multiple minutes of music and you can even keep extending it and extending it.

[00:37:51] It kind of gets repetitive after the third or fourth minute. But I have like five minutes of unique music, so. Some of it's at the beginning. That's the people here. If you stay all the way to the end, my outro also has a different section of that same track, and then the stingers and the ads and that kinda stuff all use that same music.

[00:38:10] So that's just a fun tip for you guys. If you need audio for a podcast, an ad, a video, bumper roll, anything like that, SUNO is a great tool.

[00:38:18] Michael Stelzner: Well, and I have a little, um, tip of my own Nano Banana Pro just dropped like within the last week and I did something kind of fun and I don't know if you saw it.

[00:38:28] I uploaded it to social media, but I took the logo for AI Business World. I up. Loaded it into Google, Gemini, and I said, put this logo on a coffee cup in a cafe. That's all I said. And what's really cool is it didn't just put it on a coffee cup, it had a spoon there with the reflection of the light hitting the coffee cup.

[00:38:46] And the logo looked different 'cause it looked like it was actually like put onto a gla, onto a mug, which is, you know, it didn't just have curves, it had the color differentiation changes that normally you would have. But then I did something even cooler. I said, animate it. That's all I said. And you wanna know what it did.

[00:39:04] It actually had a car on the outside of the cafe, a minivan drive by, and one of the guys inside the cafe get up and walk and as he walked the lights behind him, you know, dimmed and stuff, and it added cafe background noise first round on both of'em. People couldn't believe it. And as I was watching your videos, I was thinking, 'cause folks, if you're not watching the video side of this, Mike has some cool AI video as well.

[00:39:28] I would think you could actually upgrade a lot of the video work that you've done because people could not believe how good it was. Like I've had thousands of people watch this. And now what's really cool is anybody can take their logo and they can stick it on something. And that's what's really cool about Nana Banana pro.

[00:39:44] I think is what they call it. It's just ridiculous with, with text and understanding how to wrap it around real world objects because Google is really good with this world building capabilities.

[00:39:53] Mike Allton: Yeah. They're, they're coming leaps and bounds and you're absolutely right. It's on my to-do list. Overdue to upgrade that ad.

[00:40:00] 'cause what I did there was, you know, and you saw it and anyone watching, it's a series of short video segments, which we're still limited to 6, 8, 10 seconds depending on which video model you're choosing. But for B roll or if you're gonna stitch together for just a, a short ad like that. It's perfect. It's fantastic.

[00:40:18] So absolutely folks, you know, try that, play with that. These tools are getting amazing. Uh, nano Banana can do infographs now either natively or within Notebook LM, which is so cool. You guys should try that out. But let's talk about AI Business World. It's, you told me this the other day. You said it's a sub conference within Social Media Marketing World.

[00:40:39] W. Talk to us about, uh, obviously what's gonna be at the event, but also why should folks listening look at a conference like that and try to use that to educate themselves on Ai?

[00:40:51] Michael Stelzner: Okay, first of all, um. We got a special coupon code I'm gonna give everybody if you stick around. So AI at, I mentioned earlier that we had a track at Social Media Marketing World and was the most attended.

[00:41:03] And I, I talked to my, um, COO, who's a real human, and I said, what, what do you think about like, um, us eventually starting our own conference and what if we did it within our existing conference? And it made a lot of sense, right? Because we've already got a conference, we've already got a venue. It's the Anaheim Convention Center.

[00:41:21] Uh, we have a hundred thousand square feet upstairs, 50,000 square feet downstairs. So what we decided to do was take the downstairs section, which is 50,000 square feet, and effectively just brand it as AI Business World with multiple stages, a networking area, its own sponsors, but anybody who has actually already bought tickets to Social Media Marketing World will automatically get access to AI Business World. So this is our way of like allowing people who don't care about social media. But do care about AI to come in and experience this conference. 20 of the world's leading experts are gonna be teaching on everything from AI video to workflows, which is kind of the hot topic right now, how to create automations, agents, all the things.

[00:42:03] And I do think that. For a lot of us, it's one thing to say, yeah, I, I, I know I have to learn how to do this. It's another thing to go to a place where you're surrounded by thousands of people that are actually doing the thing, and to be able to talk to other people and learn about all the tools that they're using and understand, like, yeah, don't waste any time experimenting, just go down this path. So that's why we launched AI Business World. It will be part of social media marketing world for at least the next. Two years and um, I just thought it was a really creative way to like have a conference within a conference. What do you think about it? Because I know you've been to the conference before.

[00:42:39] Mike Allton: I'm excited for it. I gotta admit, I'm also excited that it's in Anaheim next to Disneyland. Yeah. Gotta be honest about that. I've never been to Disneyland without my kids, so. Adult Disney is, is gonna hit new levels for me next year. But you know, you and I went to MAICON and it was fantastic to just be immersed in AI education for a couple days and that's what I'm looking forward to with AI Business World being immersed in that, not just the lectures, which are gonna be phenomenal. Obviously, you know, I personally know a lot of the folks that you've got coming in, Chris Penn and Andy Crestodina, some fantastic folks are gonna be there teaching things that that, that we love. I've had 'em, you know, we've both had 'em on our shows because they're terrific educators.

[00:43:23] But beyond that, you're surrounded by people. In the rooms, outside the rooms. I mean, you know, you and I MAICON, we were having conversations all over the place and, and they were mostly still revolving around AI and how are we using it? Have you seen this? That sort of thing. So that I think is what makes an in-person event so different from subscribing to a podcast.

[00:43:44] Yeah. I hope you subscribed to both Mike and i's podcasts, but I gotta be honest with you, that's not the same as physically putting your person in a room. We're in a bigger room or series of rooms where you're surrounded by hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, uh, who are there for a similar purpose.

[00:44:00] And you can talk to them in the hallways, you can talk to them in the evenings at the networking events. Incredible things happen for our businesses. When you open yourself up to those kinds of conversations, I'm still talking to folks that I met for the first time at. Your past events at the other events that I go to, these great business opportunities, friendship opportunities, partnership opportunities.

[00:44:24] I think it's a great idea.

[00:44:25] Michael Stelzner: Well, and a lot of the people that are there are consultants or agency folk, because there's a lot of people that are like, okay, I run an agency. I've gotta expand my services. I need to learn ai. Every single session there is tactical, practical, how do you put this stuff to work?

[00:44:40] There is no theory, there's no like fluffy stuff. This is all like in the trench. How do you do the thing, which is what we're known for at Social Media Examiner. Uh, so we do have a discount coupon social media examiner.com/ai hat. Very innovative. We'll save you an extra a hundred bucks on any ticket to AI Business World or Social Media Marketing World.

[00:45:01] That'll last all the way until January 1st of, um, next year. Um, also what makes this event unique, I think is, is it's all designed to be social. Mike knows this, like everything about this conference is highly social. There's tables where you can sit on certain niches and get to know people and, and there is something really magical about being able to, to network and connect with people.

[00:45:26] And I, I think I can safely say this is probably one of the most social conferences that have ever existed. We expect to have 3000 people there this year.

[00:45:35] Mike Allton: I can vouch for that. I go to a lot of events every year. I've been doing events since 2016. My first event, well, 2015, my first event was 2015 Content Marketing World, 2016.

[00:45:46] Social Media Marketing was my first time at your event. And have gone not quite every year, but almost every single year since then. And a lot of times I'm going back for the networking and the social activities, uh, 'cause it's, it's just bar none, you know, heads and shoulders above everybody else. So it's a fantastic event for that, for learning, for networking, which means folks listening.

[00:46:06] You have to be open to that. I'll probably put a couple resources in the show notes to kind of help you. To help you. You can just go to learn. Well, you should, if you wanna. I feel like you're missing out, you know, if you don't attend some of the networking stuff, if you just, head down, walk to one room and the next, because I was there 2016, I'm an in an introverted person.

[00:46:25] Yeah. So 2016 I felt like I didn't know anybody. I knew like two people and I followed them around the whole time and I didn't really open myself up. I learned. Got better at the networking, got better at the conversation. For folks listening,

[00:46:37] Michael Stelzner: there are, by the way, there's bazillions of meetups. Like we encourage our customers to actually create their own meetups.

[00:46:42] So you're gonna find like hundreds of different meetups that you can go to. I, as a matter of fact, I'm almost certain there's a meetup for introverts. I'm almost, we have pre-event stuff and

[00:46:52] Mike Allton: nobody's there.

[00:46:55] Michael Stelzner: The job, the job is to help you make some connections while you're there. Because let's be honest, this is kind of a lonely industry and it's changing and it can be scary.

[00:47:02] And yes, they come to learn, but people almost always come back because of the connections that they make.

[00:47:08] Mike Allton: And actual business. You know, I mean, I'm starting to, uh, you know, assign workshops and, and teaching engagements and that sort of thing for Q1 from folks that I met at events that I went to a couple months ago.

[00:47:18] These things happen, so folks definitely give that in mind. I'll have the link to, uh, learn more about the conference. Definitely I'll include Mike's coupon code. Take advantage of that now, not just because it's timestamped, but because I know the price goes up the closer we get to the event, not only for the event tickets, but travel, all that kinda stuff.

[00:47:36] So just commit. Do yourselves a favor, commit December, 2025 to going to AI Business World in 2026. But Mike, last question. For folks who are listening right now, they want to get started today, maybe they heard you talk about how they're not behind earlier and they don't agree. They maybe feel like they are behind.

[00:47:54] They don't wanna wait until April they get started, which they shouldn't. What do you think they should do right now to kind of get outta the curve before 2026 hurts?

[00:48:03] Michael Stelzner: Well, this is what, this is what I've done and I mentioned it earlier, but I recommend creating a virtual version of yourself. So what I would do is if you haven't already taken an Enneagram test, I would take an Enneagram test.

[00:48:17] And Mike, if I'm not mistaken, didn't you have a guest recently come on talking about the Enneagram? Am I right or am I wrong on that?

[00:48:23] Mike Allton: We didn't talk about Enneagram specifically, but yeah, the very last podcast episode, uh, with Heather, we, we talked about mindset and communication styles and so on. Yeah.

[00:48:33] Michael Stelzner: Well, you can take the Enneagram quiz for free and you can get your Enneagram, and then what you can do is you can go into any AI tool and you can say your task is to create, is to become a virtual equivalent of me. But your job is to encourage me when I'm down. Your job is to spur me when I ha when I'm not exercising a growth mindset.

[00:48:57] And your job is just to help me think differently. Here's what my Enneagram is, here's what my role is in my company. Like, I'm the founder, the CEO, and here's what I care about. So in my case, I put what I care about is forward progress. And one other thing I think, which is, uh, vision and then if you have any kind of a document that you can attach to this, it could even be a thread.

[00:49:22] It could be just like a vision of what you want to achieve or it could be like some sort of mission statement. Create that and then just pin it on whatever AI tool you're using. And then when you're in a funk, because let's be honest. We all get in funks, right? We get distracted. Mm-hmm. You can go to this and say, Hey, I'm struggling with this.

[00:49:42] Help me out. And the more context you give it, the more it's going to encourage you. Like, I did this literally just a few days ago because I have to start planning for my Q1 objectives, right. For the business. And I just, I've been doing things, I haven't been thinking forward, and it said, Hey, you've got this big vision which is to have a hundred thousand customers for your software product by 2027, you have to get on this right? And it kicked me in the butt. It knew I was an eight wing seven. It told me I'm thinking too much like a media CEO, and not as a software, CEO. I was like, whoa, alright. Good job. You know? That's what I would've told somebody else.

[00:50:19] So just create kind of a virtual equivalent of yourself. Because if there's one person you know better than anybody else, it's yourself. And just you can tweak it and refine it. But once you create that, the key to the entire thing is to enhance this prompt for reliability and I think stability, I can't remember the exact phrase, but you could just say like, enhance this for, uh, increased quality.

[00:50:40] Just come up with something good. And then what it will do is it'll take whatever you put in there, it'll make something way better. Edit it. Make sure you like it, and then create a new thread. Pop it in there with the instruction set, attach whatever documents you've got, like your vision and mission stuff, and then just pin it and come back to it.

[00:50:57] Whenever you're in a funk, that's something you can do like today.

[00:51:02] Mike Allton: Could not agree more. My AI chief of staff, which is my equivalent to, to your, you know, assistant that you're talking about, there has, has been, uh, an actual, a literal life changer. For me because I'm a solopreneur, I don't have anybody here that I can lean over to and ask, Hey, what do you think about this, that, or the next thing for me, for this today, for next week, for next month?

[00:51:22] And I've given it permission to push back. I mean, I've said challenge my assumptions and it does, right? I've, I've got this AI work body. We talked about it on your show, into that in the show notes, right? I've, I had, I, it's, it's basically a, a way to do what you're talking about doing. And I created a little mini course for it.

[00:51:40] Uh, it's like 47 bucks. Teaches people you know how to go through it and how to actually build the custom GPT or Gem and so on. And about eight months ago, I was looking in my email list, which I've had for a couple decades now. I mean, literally two decades. And so it was at like 40, 45,000 people, probably half hadn't opened an email in over a year.

[00:52:00] So I needed to do a lot of maintenance on that email list. And you know, I was having conversations with my AI chief of staff and it's like, you, you really need to purge a lot of those people and then your email open ability will go up and everything. And I didn't wanna just delete 'em. So I wanted to do a reheat campaign and my thought was, Hey, what if I offered 'em my $47 AI work buddy course for a dollar, might peak some interest, make some money, reheat the list a bit, right?

[00:52:26] And I ran that idea by my AI chief of staff and it said, Mike, have you thought about how that devalues your product? I've shared this story before, so folks listening might've heard me say that before, but I hadn't thought about that. But it was absolutely right. You know, if I had asked any other marketer or savvy business owner, they would've said, Mike, don't do that.

[00:52:44] It makes you look cheap. Ah, so terrific advice. Mike, you've been absolutely amazing. This has been such an important interview for folks. I want you to let them know, 'cause I know their minds are just buzzing with additional questions and thoughts that they wanna run by you. Where should they go if they want to connect with you personally?

[00:53:02] Michael Stelzner: Okay. I am active on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X. Those are the three platforms you can just search for. Michael Stelzner. Uh, I've got blue check marks, I believe on pretty much all of them or whatever the check marks are most active on Facebook. And then, uh, if they want to listen to another podcast, AI explored is my show.

[00:53:20] And, um, I listen to Mike's and if you have room for another show, throw it on there. And then if they're interested in, uh, that discount, it's social media examiner.com/ai hat. We'll give you an extra a hundred bucks off the already discounted sales. Thank you, Mike, so much for, uh, enabling me to come on the show and, uh, exploring some of these concepts with you today.

[00:53:40] Mike Allton: Yeah, my pleasure. It's been absolute blast chatting with you folks. It is all the time that I've got with Mike, so I have to say goodbye, but I hope. You've enjoyed this episode, definitely go listen to his podcast. I've been listening to it since it came out. Our shows came out within a week of each other, uh, 2024, which is really a real treat to me.

[00:53:57] So thank you for all the work that you're doing, Mike, to help marketers like myself and, and our colleagues in the industry. But folks, like I said, I'll have all of his links down in the show notes below. So the next time, welcome to the Grid.

[00:54:09] That's a wrap on another episode of The AI Hat podcast. I hope you've gained some valuable insights and actionable strategies to boost your business with Ai. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network. And don't forget to visit the ai hat.com for more resources and to connect with me.

[00:54:27] Until next time, keep innovating and remember, the future of business is human and it's powered by AI.