A client messaged me today and said, “This AI thing is worrying. I hate it.”
Fair enough. Each to their own.
But as someone who has run a web business for almost 30 years, I can say this with absolute honesty: if we hadn’t embraced change, we would have been out of business many times over.
There’s an old phrase often misquoted as “survival of the fittest.” Darwin’s real point was closer to this: it’s not the strongest who survive, but those most able to adapt to change.
In nearly three decades online, we’ve had to reinvent ourselves every two or three years.
Think about some of the changes:
The rise of search engines.
Mobile phones.
Social media.
E-commerce.
Cloud hosting.
Cyber security.
SEO evolution.
Now AI and all that it brings.
Each wave felt disruptive at the time. Each wave brought fear. And each wave eventually became normal.
Remember when people thought steam engines were terrifying?
When rockets were reckless?
When aeroplanes were just not safe?
When personal computers were going to destroy all our jobs?
When the internet was seen as dangerous and unnecessary?
Today we use all of these things without thinking.
AI is just another technological shift. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Human nature prefers stability. We don’t like change. We fear it. But the fear is often bigger than the reality.
When personal computers arrived, people said they would do everything faster and we’d all be out of work. Yet here we are with laptops, smartphones, broadband and most of us are working harder and longer than ever. Why? Because our human ingenuity doesn’t disappear. It adapts. It becomes more creative. We take these new tools and we push them further and harder. We create new industries. We stretch the boundaries again.
AI adoption will be the same.
In five years time I doubt we will even talk about “AI” in the same way. It will just be part of how we work, like email, search engines, and the web itself. When was the last time you heard anyone say – I sent an email to America last night and it arrived there within two seconds – he he! But that used to be a thing. Now no one cares.
I want to encourage my clients and say:
Don’t fear these new technologies. Work out how they fit with your business. Understand how they can make your work better, faster, or more effective and most important of all – embrace them.
We use AI every day in our workplace. Not as a replacement for expertise, but as an amplifier of it.
The businesses that thrive are not the ones who resist change. They are the ones who learn how to adapt and use it wisely.
Don’t hate AI or fear it.
Try to understand it. Use it. Shape it.
That’s how progress has always worked.
If you want to know how AI can work for your business send me a message.
Grahame
