Category: Ai Reality Check

Everyone’s banging on about AI email automation like it’s some revolutionary new thing.. Spoiler: it’s not that different. But there ARE differences worth knowing about, especially if you’re about to spend money on it.. Let me break it down without the corporate bullshit..

Regular Email Automation (The Old Way)

This is what you’ve probably been using for years, even if you didn’t call it that.

What it does:

• Someone signs up → they get Welcome Email #1
• 3 days later → they get Email #2
• They click a link → different email sequence triggers
• They buy something → confirmation email + receipt
• They abandon cart → reminder email

It’s basically: IF this happens, THEN send that email.. You write the emails once. Set up the rules. It runs on autopilot.. Tools: Mailchimp, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, MailerLite , you know the drill.

The limitation: Every email is the SAME for everyone. Sarah gets the exact same Welcome to our newsletter email as Dave, even though Sarah’s interested in toast and Dave’s all about almond croissants.

AI Email Automation (The New Way)

Same concept, but the emails aren’t identical anymore.

What it does differently:

• Personalizes the actual CONTENT based on what it knows about the person
• Writes variations of emails on the fly
• Adjusts tone/style based on previous interactions
• Can reference specific things the person did, not just trigger sequences
• Learns what subject lines work better for different people

Example:

Regular automation: Hi [First Name], here’s our weekly newsletter.

AI automation: Hi Sarah, noticed you clicked on our toast recipes last week, here are 3 more you might like. Also, that almond croissant place you asked about just opened a new location.

The AI actually writes different versions based on behavior, interests, previous emails, etc.. Tools: HubSpot (AI features), Salesforce Einstein, some fancy Zapier + ChatGPT setups, or custom builds.

So What’s Actually Better?

Depends what you need.. Stick with regular automation if:

• You’re sending the same message to everyone anyway order confirmations, receipts, standard welcome sequences
• You’ve got a small list under 500 people
• Your emails work fine and people engage
• Budget’s tight regular automation is cheaper

Consider AI automation if:

• You’ve got a big, diverse audience with different interests
• Personalization actually matters to your business
• You’re drowning in manual email replies
• You’ve got budget it’s pricier
• You’re selling multiple products/services to different segments

The Honest Truth

Most small businesses don’t need AI email automation yet.. If your regular email automation is working, people open emails, click links, buy stuff, you’re fine.. AI email automation shines when you’ve got:

• 1,000+ subscribers
• Multiple customer segments
• Complex product lines
• Time to set it up properly it’s not plug-and-play

Don’t let some LinkedIn guru convince you that regular automation is dead or that you’re leaving money on the table. You’re probably not.

When AI Email Actually Helps

Where I’ve seen it work brilliantly:

1. Response drafting AI reads incoming customer emails and drafts replies for you to approve/edit. Saves hours.

2. Personalized recommendations E-commerce with hundreds of products. AI suggests products based on browsing/purchase history.

3. Re-engagement campaigns AI figures out why someone went quiet and crafts a specific win-back email.

4. Support ticket routing AI reads support emails and auto categorizes them, sends initial responses.

But here’s the thing: all of these require VOLUME to be worth it. 3 support tickets a week? Just answer them yourself.. 300 support tickets a week? Yeah, get AI involved.

The Bottom Line

Regular email automation: Set rules, write emails once, runs forever. Cheap. Effective for most.. AI email automation: Writes personalized variations on the fly. Expensive. Worth it if you’ve got serious volume and diverse audiences.

My advice: Don’t upgrade to AI email automation just because it sounds fancy.. Upgrade when regular automation stops working or you’re manually personalizing 50+ emails a week.. Otherwise? You’re just paying more for tech you don’t need.

Want to know if AI will actually help YOUR business? Try this.

Look, everyone and their dog is talking about AI right now.. Your mate Dave reckons it’ll revolutionize your business by Tuesday. LinkedIn’s absolutely rammed with people claiming it’ll 10x everything. Every other post: AI changed my life in 37 seconds and cured my bad back.

But here’s the real question: does YOUR business actually need it?

Spoiler: probably not.. And if you do need it, there’s a decent chance you’re looking at completely the wrong problem.

So I built something

A custom GPT that cuts through the bollocks and tells you straight in about 2 minutes whether AI automation will actually help your business or if you’re just getting caught up in the hype.

Here’s what it does:

• Gives you a blunt yes/no answer (no sitting on the fence)
• Tells you exactly how AI will help with real examples, not corporate waffle about streamlining workflows..
• Hands you a proper spec you can give to an expert to actually build the thing
• Includes honest don’t bother advice when AI’s genuinely not the answer to your problem

What it absolutely doesn’t do:

Overhype AI like it’s the second coming, Try to flog you anything, Use words like synergy, leverage, or optimize, Waste your precious time with 47 page reports.. Think of it like asking that one mate in the pub who actually knows their stuff and won’t just tell you what you want to hear.

How it works

You answer 3 straightforward questions about your business. It tells you: Whether AI will help (yes/no/not yet), Why or why not, What to do next. That’s it. No fuckin about…

Give it a try

No email address needed. Just fires up ChatGPT. Free account works absolutely fine.

Try Do I Need AI? here

If it tells you.. No, don’t bother.. brilliant. You’ve just saved yourself a small fortune on AI solutions you don’t actually need. Consider that my gift to you.

Why I made this

Because I’m tired of watching small business owners get sold expensive AI solutions to problems that either: Don’t exist, AI can’t actually solve, Could be fixed with a £10/month tool and 20 minutes of setup.

Someone needed to build something that gives straight answers. So I did. Got a business owner mate drowning in admin or wondering if they’re missing out on the AI revolution? Send them this. Takes 2 minutes. Might save them thousands.

Try Do I Need AI? here

I’m middle aged, non techie. I believed a ai website builder like lovable would have the knowledge & expertise of a billion web developers.

It would know all the issues, security stuff, browser stuff, safety, database stuff & literally with a few prompts like everyone says would build a perfect site that was safe, secure & worked brilliantly for 1 person & a million people.

I was totally wrong. It’s like a child whose learning. Yes it will build you a site. But it will be full of bugs, issues, browser problems, database & security problems.

I’ve built 3 sites. All simple. All have zero api integration bar email. No payments, tried Google OAuth for access. Forget it. Never works.

Site 1. The database was temp. I lost all my first 30 subscribers. I didn’t know.

Site2. A simple email out a daily word. Seems to be ok.

Site 3. A total fuckin disaster. Full of bugs, patches, it never fixes anything, fix 1 thing something else breaks. I cough in the front room. It falls apart. Can’t access, too slow, hangs, logs me out. It’s never ending falling apart.

Each time you try and fix. That’s tokens. And they go down real fast. Remember. I’m non techie. I need to rely on ChatGPT & lovable to fix it. I spend hrs n hrs going round in circles. Tokens going down.

I’ll take responsibility for things I’ve done wrong. But my point. If you think 1 prompt and you’ll get a great site fully working, robust & works on all browsers, desktop & mobile. Thing again.

Maybe. It only works on super basic sites. Mine is. But it’s truly awful. I’ve zero confidence in Lovable. I’m currently doing a total rebuild, remove all patches & start again. If this doesn’t work. I’ll abandon ship & delete my acc.

Thankfully this is not my business. But if it was. I’d be pulling my hair out if I had any. Maybe. Ai web builders ain’t as clever as we think they are. That’s the lesson.

I’m middle aged, probably far too old for all this AI shit.. but i enjoy the learning, trying and fuckin up i guess.. Over the last month or so, I’ve built 3 sites with AI. Here is the one major all encompassing lesson for you Business owners..

GET EXPERT AI ADVICE..

1 prompt websites is frankly total bullshit. AI web builders make tons of mistakes, errors are riddled with bugs and issues.. They will be unreliable, and may well fall apart when you get more than you and your mum visiting at the same time.. lol…

My point is simple, if its your business, your livelihood, dont chance it, dont think you can go it alone.. You cant.. Not unless you really are a great coder, techie, geek..

If its for fun.. full your boots, its doesnt matter if it goes wrong..

Example.. my 1st site.. the database was temp.. who knew?? defnitely not me.. lol.. found out by accident.. lost 30 subscribers.. felt a right nob..

Another site, no robots.txt file added.. so no google crawling of my site for 3-4 weeks.. 30 pages not indexed.. who knew?? again not me until I checked..

And as for my past site.. a total rebuild was needed..riddled with bugs, issues, and fell apart with me coughing in the front room AND these are simple sites, no payment api’s integrated AND dont start me off with Google oAUTH for access.. defnitely could not get that to work..

Get AI expert advice.. thats my advice..

A cautionary tale.

I’ve been using ChatGPT. I asked it do some research for me. I told it I was giving it a file, it needed to take its time, do a thorough & comprehensive review. When it’s done to report back & update the file with the up to date info.

I added the file. Hit submit. Literally a nano sec later. It gave me the file back. And said. Here you go. All done. I then said. Hold up. Have you done any research as I asked. As it’s impossible. You literally gave me the file back 2 nano secs later. I asked it to prove to me what changes it had made.

ChatGPT said. Sorry. It hadn’t done anything. I’d caught it in a bare faced lie. Boom. Unbefuckinleivable…..it then went off and did its thing. 5-10mins later. It had completed its work. It even proved it for me.

Theres a moral in here somewhere. Ai’s. Lie, make things up, etc. you have to ask it to prove their work, prove what they’ve done. Ask it & challenge it. You have to treat AI like a child.

My stuff is for fun, for my interests and learnings. If this was for business. It could cause you serious issues.