Augmenting with AI

Have you got a plan to incorporate AI into your business? If not, it’s time to start thinking about it.

 

The conversation around artificial intelligence in business has reached a critical point. While headlines scream about job losses and departments being made obsolete, the reality on the ground tells a different story. The businesses winning with AI aren’t replacing their people. They’re augmenting them by using AI tools to make them more powerful and impactful.

 

The harsh reality is that AI today is the worst it’s ever going to be. The technology we’re seeing right now represents the baseline. From here, it only gets better, faster, and more capable. The question isn’t whether to adopt AI. It’s whether you’re willing to fall behind competitors who are already using it to move faster, cut costs, and reach markets you haven’t even considered yet.

 

I’ve spent years working directly with business owners on operational transformations, having structured over 20 equity partnerships and helped dozens of companies implement practical AI solutions through my work at Built Different AI Consulting. What I’ve learned is that the businesses succeeding with AI aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets or the most technical teams. They’re the ones willing to start small and scale what works.

 

 

The augmentation advantage

Daniel Priestley, entrepreneur and author, frames this perfectly when discussing AI’s role in business - highlighting that the technology multiplies expertise rather than replacing it. A skilled salesperson with AI support can handle three times the pipeline. A marketing team augmented with AI tools can test campaigns across multiple markets simultaneously. An operations manager using AI can spot inefficiencies that might take months to identify manually.

 

This multiplication of expertise creates opportunities beyond traditional employment models. Through our AI Operating Partner approach, we help experienced operators turn their knowledge into ownership stakes. Rather than just consulting, they become equity partners in businesses, using AI to scale their impact across multiple companies simultaneously. It’s another form of augmentation: one person’s expertise, amplified by AI, creating value across several businesses.

 

This isn’t about making people redundant. It’s about making people more effective.

 

Take sales teams as an example. Right now, most salespeople spend perhaps 20% of their time actually selling and 80% on admin, follow-ups, data entry, and lead qualification. If  AI could handle the 80%, that allows the sales team to focus entirely on building relationships and closing deals. That same team can then generate two or three times the revenue without hiring a single additional person.

 

 

The practical reality

The businesses seeing real results with AI are starting small and practical. They’re using AI to automate prospect research before sales calls. They’re deploying AI SDRs to handle initial email sequences and qualification conversations. They’re using AI to analyse customer data and spot patterns that inform product development.

 

Through my consulting work with businesses across multiple sectors, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when AI is implemented correctly. One client recently deployed an AI system to handle their entire lead generation and qualification process. Within 45 days, they’d booked 92 qualified sales calls without hiring additional staff. The founders didn’t lose their jobs. They got their time back to focus on closing deals and building the business.

 

This is what AI augmentation looks like in practice.

 

 

Where businesses go wrong

The biggest pitfall I see is businesses being overwhelmed by AI or, worse, taking advice from people who’ve never actually operated a business at scale.

 

The AI space is flooded with "experts" who’ve watched a few YouTube videos and now position themselves as authorities. The reality is they know the theory but lack the context of implementation.

 

AI implementation needs to serve real operational needs, not theoretical possibilities. Real business owners need practical guidance from people who understand each part of the business because, like any tool, AI needs to be deployed strategically within the context of real operational challenges.

 

The other mistake is trying to do too much too fast. My advice is to start with one process and get it working, then learn from it and expand from there.

 

 

The future is already here

Elon Musk has repeatedly stated that AI will be more intelligent than any single human by next year, and smarter than all humans combined shortly after. Whether you agree with his timeline or not, it’s clear that AI capability is accelerating fast.

 

The businesses that thrive in the next decade will be the ones that equip their people with AI to perform at levels that previously seemed superhuman.

 

 

Making it work

The first step is to identify the repetitive, time-consuming tasks in your business - this could be things like sales prospecting, email follow-ups, data entry, basic customer service queries, meeting scheduling or report generation.

 

Then measure the results. How much time did your team buy back? How much faster are you reaching prospects? What’s the quality difference? The aim is tangible business improvements.

 

The businesses that see AI as a force multiplier rather than a replacement are already pulling ahead. The question is whether you’re augmenting your team’s capabilities or watching competitors do it first.

 

Remember, AI is the worst it’s ever going to be right now. The opportunity here is in acting while others are still debating whether to start.

 

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Steven Pettigrew is the founder of the Built Different AI growth partner

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and PhonlamaiPhoto