3 myths about AI that will kill your business

You might have noticed something.

I don’t sell AI Agents or custom GPTs. I don’t teach how to use AI. I don’t promote AI tools.

Someone asked me recently what my “AI stack” is, and I had to answer honestly: I don’t have an AI stack. 

I rarely use it beyond the simplest of use cases. Most recently, I asked Gemini help me reserve and pay for a campsite in the Coronado National Forrest. The government’s website is shockingly bad at explaining the process.

Not exactly cutting edge, is it?

I realize I’m a bit of an outlier. Every email that lands in my inbox these days seems to be some variation on “how to get rich/work faster/sound smarter thanks to AI.” Clearly, AI sells.

So why am I not jumping on the revenue train?

Because AI is not as useful for solopreneurs as we are being told.

Myth #1: If you’re not using AI, you’ll be left behind.

I’ve heard this from so many people, and frankly, I’m over it. It’s like saying, “If you’re not keeping up with the latest innovations in weed control, you’ll be left behind.”

Sure, lawn-care specialists and even passionate homeowners can win the dandelion wars by staying up-to-date on weed management. For the rest of us, that old-school WeedWacker® gets the job done, and you don’t have to pay a subscription fee to use it.

Reality: Unless your business model is to build and teach AI, you’re not behind.

Myth #2: AI will make your work easier/faster/better.

This is what all those emails in my inbox want me to believe. That I can click a button or spin up a Custom GPT and shave my work down from hours to mere minutes (or seconds, if I grab the upsell, too).

But does AI really make your work life easier?

It’s true that corporations can cut entire departments now that AI can parse spreadsheet data 1000x faster than Gary in accounting can manage. But for solopreneurs like you and me, it’s the opposite.

Rather than saving time, AI helps you waste it.

Instead of publishing useful content, we waste time learning to create mildly entertaining videos that don’t add value for our audience.

Instead of learning more about our niche and expanding our expertise, we waste time keeping up with the latest AI trends that don’t affect us and that won’t stand the test of time.

We especially waste time by letting AI do our work for us. The work that people (real ones, not bots) trust us to produce.

Last week, I saw someone post on LinkedIn: “When every brand sounds the same, sounding like yourself is a competitive advantage.”

Along with six AI prompts you could use to, you know, sound more like yourself.

I can’t get over the irony, or the fact that the poster and her followers couldn’t see it.

On the surface, it looks like pasting in a smart prompt and letting AI do all the heavy lifting is saving loads of time. I’d argue that it’s setting you back. It erodes trust (yes, we can tell you wrote that post with AI), and it strips away your credibility.

In other words, it’s causing harm to your brand and reputation that will require many months or years to fix. Is that really worth saving a few hours?

Reality: Spend less time leveraging AI, and more time building up your expertise, relationships, and business assets. That’s where you have a sustainable advantage.

Myth #3: You can build an empire of AI agents while you hide behind your laptop and make millions!

Ah, but you don’t need expertise and relationships when you have AI!

Promises of AI-staffed agencies and AI-written publishing empires are everywhere. We’re told to “use these prompts and let ChatGPT create your products, write your sales pages, and design your listings. All you have to do is copy and paste!”

None of that passes the sniff test, and platforms are cracking down on AI-generated content to quell the flood of low-effort, low-quality submissions. Amazon’s KDP program limits the number of titles you can create. Etsy requires disclosure of AI usage, and has banned sellers for using purchased or templated prompts for product creation.

Other platforms are following suit. Valve (Steam) requires game developers to disclose the use of AI. YouTube and Amazon have similar requirements. Shutterstock does not allow AI-generated images on the platform at all. Spotify recently deleted 75 million AI-generated tracks.

AI bans aside, this type of content is by definition a race to the bottom. It’s so lacking in personality and engagement that it can’t stand out on its own. There’s nothing to differentiate your prompt-driven data dump from the next prompt-driven data dump.

That means the only way to stand out is to produce more. Sheer volume is the only distinction. When what you create becomes a commodity, its value plummets.

Reality: Commoditizing your creative, expertise-driven work, whether it’s content creation, product development, or idea generation, is a race to the bottom—and who wants to claim that gold medal?

My take

Now, lest you think I’m nothing more than an old woman telling kids to stay off my lawn, here’s what you don’t know:

For most of 2025, I didn’t publish a single thing without first asking my bestie, ChatGPT, how it would land with you.

Would you nod along? Be confused? Click the buy button?

I never let Chatty write for me, but I allowed it to shape what I published. I bought into the fallacy of myth #2, believing that AI would improve my work. We had long conversations about my ideal audience, how I work, my experience, my opinions, your experience and opinions, and the current state of the online business world.

And you know what I found? ChatGPT is a lousy business partner. 

After nearly a year, it didn’t know me, my style, or my audience any better than it had in the beginning. It offered suggestions I would never follow, using language I would never use, and that you would never accept as having come from me. 

What’s worse: It’s a yes-man that will agree with anything you say. So much so that it convinced Allan Brooks he’d discovered a new mathematical theory. I’ve tested it myself, feeding it nonsensical business ideas only to be met with enthusiastic agreement and encouragement to follow my ideas. 

But there’s a bigger problem.

Use of LLMs (large language models like ChatGPT) has been proven to degrade our ability to think. A study at MIT in 2025 showed reduced neural connectivity in brain areas associated with memory and creativity, and long-term erosion of critical thinking skills.

Scientists call this synaptic pruning. You might know it as “use it or lose it.” Turns out your brain really is like a muscle. The less you exercise it, the weaker it becomes.

Outsourcing your writing, thinking, and problem solving to your favorite AI is to your brain what sitting on the sofa all day eating ice cream is to your abs. It might be fun today, but we will most certainly pay for it in the future.

Bottom line: You want to stand out? It’s time to stand up.

Are your competitors using AI? Probably. Is it making them better coaches, course creators, or mentors? No. It makes them all sound like carbon copies of one another. It’s the Stepford Wives, reimagined for 2026.

The good news, if you’re still reading, is that the Stepford Wife content flood is making it easier for you to stand out. You don’t have to build another AI agent or buy another bundle of prompts. You just have to stand up and be yourself.

Not the version of you that ChatGPT spits out in 3.29 seconds. The real you. The one with the opinions and the typos and the questionable grammar. The one who isn’t just mimicking what others are saying in a cadence that sounds suspiciously like everything else they read today. The one who has real expertise and who actually puts some thought and effort into your content.

The one who has a face and a voice and a unique style, and who isn’t too timid to use them.

Are there good uses for AI in 2026? Of course. Next week I’ll tell you about three ways I do use AI in my business to save time, and how you can use it, too. I’m not a total luddite, it turns out.

Meanwhile, if you’re a solopreneur who uses AI in your business, drop me a comment. Tell me how AI is adding genuine value to and driving revenue for your business. I’d love to know what I might be missing.