The Uncomfortable Truth About Changing Your Mind in Business

When AI burst onto the scene in 2022 I reacted the way I always do to the introduction of new technology.  I was excited.  And as a dyed in the wool geek girl, I jumped on board with both feet.

I immediately began looking at all the ways it might help small business owners. It could help someone work through an idea, organize information, get started when they were staring at a blank page or complete some of the tasks that tend to swallow up far too much of the day.

For women running businesses on their own, often while also managing homes, families, health issues, caregiving and everything else life decides to toss onto the pile, that seemed incredibly valuable.

I experimented with AI in my own business. I learned what it could do well, where it tended to go off the rails and how much guidance it needed before the results sounded anything like the person using it.

That led me to create my AI Persona service.

The purpose of the service was never to have AI replace the person behind the business. It was actually the opposite. I wanted to help people protect their voice, their brand, their values and the way they communicate. I wanted to help them so they did not end up publishing the same bland, overly polished content that everyone else seemed to be producing.

The service itself is good. I believe the work behind it is useful, and I know it can help someone use AI more thoughtfully.

I am also preparing to stop offering it.

The Shiny New Thing Became More Complicated

There was no single piece of information that changed my mind about AI.

It was more of a gradual discovery.

The longer I used it, the more I began reading about it from people who were not trying to sell me something, or convince me that AI would solve every business problem

I learned more about how large language models were trained and how much writing, art, photography and other creative work had been used without the permission of the people who created it.

I watched AI-generated images and writing begin flooding spaces where real creatives were already struggling to be paid fairly for their work. Being a creative myself, this stung.

Then came the information dump about the environmental cost. The amount of energy and water required to build and run these systems is not something I can simply tuck into the back of my mind because the technology is convenient.

None of this means I believe AI is entirely bad or that nobody should use it. I still use it myself.

What has changed is how often I use it, what I use it for and how much of the work I am willing to hand over to it.

In the beginning, I was looking for all the places AI could fit into a business. Now I am much more interested in deciding where it should not fit.

That is a huge shift.

It Would Be Easier If the Service Had Failed

It would be a much simpler story if nobody wanted the Persona service or if I had discovered that I hated providing it.

I could look at the numbers, shrug and say it was time to move on.

That is not what happened.

The service did not suddenly become bad because my feelings about AI changed. The work I put into developing it did not become worthless. I did not wake up one morning and decide everything I had believed before was foolish.

I simply know more now than I did when I started.

And the more I have learned, the less comfortable I have become with offering a service that helps people bring AI more deeply into their businesses while I am actively placing tighter limits around its role in mine.

I have gone back and forth with that.

Part of me has argued that the service actually helps people use AI more responsibly. That is true. It includes setting boundaries, voice protection and instructions about what AI should and should not do.

Another part of me has wondered whether getting rid of it is an overreaction. AI is not going away and helping people use it more carefully is certainly better than encouraging them to type one vague sentence into ChatGPT and publish whatever gets spit out.

Reasonable arguments, right?

They also do not change the fact that continuing to offer the service no longer feels like the right thing to do for me. It no longer aligns with how I view AI usage.

And at some point, that has to matter.

We Put a Strange Amount of Pressure on Ourselves to Remain Consistent

Once we have publicly supported something, created an offer around it or planted a flag in a particular opinion, changing our minds can feel embarrassing.

Someone might point out that we once said something different.

They might think we are inconsistent. They may decide we were wrong before, wrong now or possibly wrong both times, which is a valid criticism. Even if it’s not entirely true.

So we cling to old decisions longer than we should.

This is especially easy to do in business because changing direction creates more work. Pages need to be updated. Offers need to be removed. Maybe new products have to be created.

There is also the money and time already invested.

Walking away from something can make all of that feel completely wasted.

But I’m beginning to think we place far too much value on remaining consistent with who we used to be and not nearly enough on remaining honest about who we are now.

I did not have the same information when I created my AI Persona service that I have today. My feelings about the technology have changed because I continued learning about it, using it and paying attention to the parts that made me uncomfortable.

Would it really be better to ignore all of that so I can appear consistent?

I don’t think so.

What I Am Doing Instead

I will be replacing the done-for-you AI Persona service with a self-study workbook and video.

The workbook will still help business owners identify their voice, values, boundaries and preferences. It will help them create clear instructions for the occasions when they do decide to use AI.

But the focus will not be on finding more ways to work AI into their businesses. It will be on helping them use it in a way that aligns with them and their businesses.

• Where is it genuinely helpful?
• Which tasks should remain human?
• What information should never be entered into it?
• How can someone recognize when the tool has drifted away from their voice?
• At what point does saving time begin to cost them something they aren’t willing to pay?

I want people to understand that using AI does not have to mean giving it access to every room in the house. It can remain a tool that is brought out for particular jobs and put away again when the job is finished.

The workbook will also allow people to make these decisions for themselves instead of having me build the system for them. They can decide how much or how little AI they are comfortable using, including deciding that they do not want to use it for certain parts of their work at all.

That feels much more aligned with where I am now.

Maybe Changing Your Mind Is the Point

We talk a lot about giving ourselves permission to begin.

Start the business. Create the offer. Try the new thing. Take the leap.

There is far less discussion about giving ourselves permission to stop, especially when the thing we are stopping is not an obvious disaster.

Sometimes an idea can still be useful and no longer be right for you.

A service can be well designed and still not belong in your business anymore. A goal can be perfectly reasonable and still be based on a life you no longer want. Something you once believed wholeheartedly can become more complicated as you learn, experience and change.

I don’t regret exploring AI or creating the AI Persona service.

Doing both helped me understand the technology better. It also helped me clarify what I believe about the ways it should, and should not, be used.

That’s far from a wasted effort.

It’s actualy part of getting here.

I am not locked into my original decision simply because I made it with enthusiasm. Neither are you.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that we are not meant to cling to things that no longer align with our values or who we are becoming.

We are allowed to learn something new.

We are allowed to become uncomfortable.

We are allowed to rethink the plan.

And yes, even after we have built the webpage, announced the offer, and told everyone what a wonderful idea it was, we are allowed to change our minds.

Has Your Thinking About AI Changed Too?

I would love to know where you have landed. Are you using AI more, less, or simply with stronger boundaries than you did in the beginning?

Leave a comment (or email me) and tell me what has changed for you.