You're right to be sceptical about AI. But it makes no sense to stay that way.

It took me years to see the value in using Canva.

It feels like it's been a long time since I converted from using Adobe Photoshop to using Canva for all my graphics and social media images.

I remember thinking that Canva was a cop-out for those who didn't want to spend time learning how to use a real design tool. Ironically, I wasn't even using Photoshop as a photo editing tool; I was using it is a graphics layout tool - so I wasn't even using it for its intended purpose.

But I was paying just shy of $100 per month to use it and a bunch of other pieces of software and I was locked-in.

I now haven't used Photoshop for about four years.

When Canva started expanding the capabilities of their system to handle not only graphics, but presentations and videos, I could no longer ignore it.

Every workshop I write is now presented on Canva.

Every social media image is edited on Canva.

Every infographic is now done on Canva.

Once I had moved pasty my bias against it, I found endless use cases for it.

"It's for lazy amateurs" became, "I'm busy and need to do this quickly."

"It doesn't do enough that I need" became, "How much I really need?"

"At this cheap price it can't be good" became, "It's so cheap for what it does!"

And this is exactly what I'm starting to see with people using generative AI tools right now. People have their reasons for fearing it.

And those fears are justified.?

AI is pretty bad when you use it how most people tried to use it at first.

I can still remember a time when ChatGPT was first released - or even before that when tools like Writesonic, Rytr and Jasper were rolled out, promising to cut down the time it took to write great articles and SEO-optimised blog posts to just seconds.

They were terrible.

And all those copywriters who were curious about this world-changing technology popped in, threw in a sentence and watched the awful output appear as they thought it would, and they subsequently threw their hands in the air, declared AI a joke and continued on their way.

But they forgot one very important thing: If a client had given them just one sentence to work with before writing something for them, they'd pump out absolute garbage as well.

If you were given the world's best paintbrush, told that it would would improve your technique, so you dip it in orange juice and find that it's no good at painting anything, you'd probably question the use of the orange juice rather than the use of the canvas.

And this is how so many people first experienced generative AI writing software.

Like Tesla's "Autopilot" we have been sold this AI thing in the wrong way.

Hype will do what hype will do. And if you tend to get your advice from pretty boys on YouTube who have thumbnails declaring "this changes everything" about every new piece of technology, you could be excused for believing that AI is going to make your life a breeze.

It'll make you look better, write better, work faster, wash your dishes, raise your kids... maybe not the last two, but we've been sold something that is far beyond most of our abilities to learn easily.

The reality is that AI has been around a very long time in one form or another.

If you've ever used "Hey Siri" or "Hey Google" or autocorrect or even Grammarly, you've used a form of AI.

What is fairly new is this "generative AI."

And this is the thing that's getting all the hype.

ChatGPT will save your hours of writing.

CoveAI will help you collaborate more.

CanvaAI will create genius images.

Suno will make you a pop star.

And every one of these will turn you in to a millionaire if only you buy my $150 course to show you how.

Sigh.

We've seen all this before.?

Blockchain. Bitcoin. Drop Shipping. Paid Surveys.?

There's always a scam following closely behind any new technology.

But there is something a little different about AI.

AI isn't a replacement. It's an augmentation.

Sorry for the buzzword there. I'll rephrase that.?

AI isn't good at replacing you. But it's very good at helping you do a lot of things faster, more accurately and in ways you might not have thought of.

For example, I don't use AI to write for me. But I do use it to generate ideas for me, search those ideas for the most interesting ones, outline how I might approach writing about those ideas, and then generate some examples I could use in my writing.

It's still very much my voice, my experience and my way of communicating - but I'm doing it several times faster - which means I can do more of it.

In this example, I will: 1. Use AI to scan topics on X (Twitter), LinkedIn and on dozens of blogs for ideas in the sphere of what I like to write about.

2. I will then use AI to summarise what it finds into a list of ideas.

3. I then use AI to search those ideas and suggest the best ones within my parameters of what I would like to write about.

4. AI then suggests matching ideas.

5. Now AI will give me seven different approaches to how I might write about that topic.

6. Finally, AI will generate an outline of how to structure the article or post that I am about to write.

This whole process might have taken over 2 hours before I even started writing.

Now it takes around 5 minutes before I'm doing the writing itself.

When multiplied across my week, I'm getting back around 9 hours a week that I can put in to other things.

But the vital thing to understand here is that AI isn't replacing me. It's making me better. What I do well, is write. What I don't do well, is get past creative block.

And that, to me, is what the "magic" of AI is.

It's really good at the things that I'm not good at.

Not the things that I love doing.

That's all for this weekend. Just one short read about how AI isn't the hype-fuelled human replacement that we think it is - yet!?

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See you again next week.

Cheers,

Dante

P.S. Here's a few free ways I can lend a hand if you need some help.

I do a lot on LinkedIn. I'm in there everyday creating content that I hope can help people out with getting better at being online and being noticed. I'd love you to connect with me. Join my profile here.

My Better Writing for Social Media online mini-course has been completed by over 3000 people now. It's a 5-week email delivered series of things you can do to better approach writing online. Start it here .

This month I have a bunch of free online workshops that I'm delivering through Darwin Innovation Hub. From AI tools to Writing Online and getting the most out of Canva, you can book them free right here .

And here's some of the new tools I'm using to get my work done.

I'm currently migrating all my customer relations, websites, marketing activities and social media monitoring to True Blue Connect. In fact, this newsletter will come from it next week. It's locally operated and supported right here in Darwin too. Find out more about it here.

Perplexity is an AI writing and research tool that doesn't make stuff up (like ChatGPT often does. It's now my most used AI tool. It's free and it's here.

I've been using Neuron Writer for over a year. I now have over 100 articles ranking on Google because of it. Get it here.

I've been levelling up my writing of blogs, articles, social posts and even the scripts for videos and podcasts using Dan Koe's Kortex app. It creates a whole new type of flow for content exploration and writing - and given that I recently hit 4 millions views for my LinkedIn content the past week, it is definitely working! Check it out here .

Motion is the calendar I use to bring all my calendars together. It's also how people book time with me. Check it out here.

Video doesn't have to be hard. For me, it's not something I can do on a mobile phone. I use the desktop version of CapCut to easily add captions, transitions and chop and change visuals. Check it out here.