AI Won’t Fix Your Business. But You Might Be Surprised at What Will.
There’s a pattern I keep seeing. Someone discovers AI, gets excited about the possibilities, and starts using it for everything. Content, emails, strategy docs, and social posts. They’re producing more than ever. And none of it is landing.
The problem isn’t the tool. It’s that they didn’t know what they were trying to say before they started.
This Is the Opposite of What You’re Being Told
Every AI guru right now is selling you the same thing: more tools, more prompts, more automation, and more output. Learn this platform. Master this workflow. Stack these apps together and watch the magic happen.
And look, I’m not anti-tool. I use multiple AI tools every single day. But nobody’s talking about the part that actually matters, which is that none of it works if you don’t know what you’re trying to say.
That’s the unsexy truth. It doesn’t sell courses and it doesn’t make for a viral tweet thread. But it is the thing that separates people who are actually building something from people who are just making noise faster.
The Confusion Was Already There
I know this because I’ve done it to myself.
When I’m clear on what I want to say, AI works beautifully. I know the problem I’m addressing, the pain points I’m speaking to, and the needs behind them. I sit down, I prompt, and the output is close. Maybe it needs some editing, but the bones are there. The whole process feels easy.
But when I haven’t done that work? Nothing works. The output sounds wrong. I rewrite it. Still wrong. I adjust the prompt, try a different angle, regenerate, edit, and regenerate again. I’ll do a thousand iterations and still not like any of them. And the whole time I’m frustrated with AI, thinking the tool isn’t working.
But it’s not AI’s fault. I didn’t have clarity before I sat down to write.
That’s the part nobody talks about. When AI isn’t giving you what you want, the problem is usually that you don’t actually know what you’re trying to say yet. And no amount of regenerating will fix that.
The Thing Nobody Wants to Admit
The thing nobody wants to admit is that they are the problem. Them and their lack of clarity. It’s usually one of these issues:
You don’t actually know what you’re offering. You have a vague sense of it, but if someone asked you to explain it in one sentence, you’d fumble.
You don’t know who you’re talking to. You say “my audience” but you couldn’t describe a specific person with specific problems who needs what you have.
You don’t have a point of view. You’re saying things that sound good but aren’t actually yours. Borrowed ideas, trending takes, stuff you think you’re supposed to say.
You don’t know what you want them to do. You want “engagement” or “growth” but you haven’t decided the actual next step you’re leading people toward.
AI can’t fix any of that. It can only reflect it back to you in polished, professional-sounding content that still doesn’t land.
And here’s the part that stings: AI feels productive. You’re generating content, iterating on ideas, doing something. But underneath that activity, there’s an avoidance happening.
Because sitting down and figuring out what you actually think? That’s hard. It requires you to make decisions. To commit to a point of view. To say this and not that. Most people would rather generate fifteen drafts than make one clear choice.
AI becomes a way to stay busy without doing the real work. You can spend hours prompting and refining and never once confront the question that actually matters: what am I trying to say and why should anyone care?
A Simple Test
This is how you identify what you need more clarity on before taking anything to AI.
Can you explain what you’re offering in one sentence without using AI to help you write it? Can you describe the specific person you’re talking to well enough that a stranger would know exactly who you mean? Do you have a point of view that’s actually yours, or are you just saying what everyone else is saying? Do you know the exact next step you want someone to take after they read your content?
If you can answer all four clearly, AI will make you faster. If you can’t, start there before you open ChatGPT.
The Clarity Check
One more thing. Before opening your AI application, before you start prompting, before you generate anything, answer these three questions:
1. What’s the one thing I want them to understand? Not three things. Not a nuanced take with multiple angles. One thing. If they remember nothing else, what’s the point you are making?
2. Who specifically is this for? Not your whole audience. The one person who needs to hear this today. Get specific about what they’re struggling with and what they already believe.
3. What do I want them to do after? Not “engage.” Not “think about it.” The actual next step. Subscribe. Buy. Click. Apply. Change their mind about something specific.
If you can answer those three questions clearly, your AI session will be focused and your output will be useful. Without those answers, stop. Do the thinking first. AI will still be there when you’re ready.
Tools Don’t Fix Fuzzy Thinking
You can have access to every AI tool on the market and still produce content that sounds like everyone else. The tools aren’t the bottleneck. Your thinking is.
AI is fast. It can generate drafts in seconds, brainstorm ideas on command, and help you iterate without starting from scratch every time. But it can only work with what you give it. Vague direction produces vague output. Unclear positioning means AI won’t figure it out for you. And if your offer isn’t clear in your own head, AI will just reflect that confusion back at you in five different formats.
The people getting real results from AI are the ones who got clear first.
The Real Advantage
The people who will win with AI are the ones who paired it with clear thinking.
AI gives you speed. But speed without direction just gets you lost faster. You need both. Clarity has to come first.
Get clear. Then let AI help you move.
I’ve been working on something to help with exactly this, specifically the part where AI starts producing content that actually sounds like you and reflects what you’re really trying to say. It’s called AI Writing Guardrails: Write Like You, Not Like a Robot.
Write like yourself without sounding artificial, generic, or compromised.
It includes my complete guardrails document with over 80 specific patterns to avoid and use, a voice sample template so you can train AI on how you actually communicate, example prompts that work with the system, and a video walkthrough showing exactly how I set this up.
It should be ready in the next few days. If you want to be first to know when it drops, make sure you’re subscribed.