AI Isn’t Taking Your Job — It’s Taking the Boring Bits
Ever since tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot entered the mainstream, headlines have been filled with anxiety. “AI is coming for your job!” “Writers and marketers beware!” “The machines are replacing us!”
But from what I’ve seen — especially among startups, freelancers, and small business owners — the opposite is true.
AI isn’t taking jobs. It’s taking the boring parts away.
And that’s exactly what most people want.
Rather than replacing human skill or creativity, AI tools are increasingly being used to automate the repetitive, admin-heavy, mentally draining parts of work — freeing up time and energy for the things that matter most.
AI as a Force Multiplier for Small Business
For small business owners, the biggest resource constraint is not funding — it’s time.
You’re juggling product development, customer service, social media, finances, logistics, strategy, and more. And somewhere in there, you’re also supposed to grow the business.
That’s where AI tools like ChatGPT become game-changers.
In my opinion, the real magic of AI isn’t that it “thinks like a human” — it’s that it can do tedious tasks instantly that would otherwise eat hours of your week.
Here are just a few ways small businesses are already using AI:
1. Marketing Without the Burnout
- Writing social media captions, hashtags, and post ideas
- Drafting emails, newsletters, and product descriptions
- Generating ideas for promotions or seasonal campaigns
- Repurposing blog content into LinkedIn or Instagram posts
Instead of staring at a blank page or trying to reinvent your marketing plan every week, you can use AI to generate drafts, brainstorm ideas, and maintain consistency — while still adding your personal voice.
You’re not outsourcing creativity. You’re speeding up execution.
2. Admin and Bookkeeping Support
- Summarising receipts and categorising expenses
- Drafting invoices or payment reminders
- Generating financial summaries or explaining basic reports
- Creating checklists, SOPs, or HR templates
These tasks don’t require high-level expertise — just precision and repetition. AI excels at that. For a solo founder or boutique agency, having an “AI assistant” to handle the grunt work can save dozens of hours per month.
That time can go back into client service, innovation, or even just breathing room.
3. Research and Customer Support
- Quickly summarising long reports or articles
- Extracting customer insights from survey data or reviews
- Writing first drafts of support replies or FAQs
- Translating content into different languages
You still need human judgment, tone, and decision-making. But with AI handling the first 80%, you get to focus on the high-value 20% — whether that’s strategy, customer empathy, or brand development.
So, Is AI Coming for Jobs?
Yes — but not in the way you think.
It’s coming for rote, repetitive, low-leverage tasks — not for the uniquely human work of making decisions, building trust, telling stories, or solving complex problems.
For small teams, this means more impact with fewer hours. For solopreneurs, it means being able to act like a team of three while staying lean. For creatives, it means spending more time on the work you love — and less on the work that pays the bills but drains your soul.
AI is becoming the new calculator, the new spreadsheet, the new search engine. It’s a tool — not a threat.
The Future Is Human + AI
In my opinion, the future of work isn’t “AI vs humans.” It’s AI + humans — and the winners will be those who figure out how to collaborate with these tools effectively.
This shift is already happening. The business owners and freelancers I work with aren’t worried about AI taking over. They’re asking:
- “How do I use AI to save time?”
- “What can I delegate to ChatGPT?”
- “Where can I focus now that I’m not stuck in admin hell?”
That’s the mindset we need to encourage. Not fear — but experimentation. Not panic — but productivity.
Let AI Do the Boring Stuff
If you’re a small business owner, freelancer, or startup founder, AI doesn’t have to be some abstract threat looming on the horizon. It can be your unfair advantage.
Let it write your first drafts. Let it summarise your meetings. Let it help you schedule, research, repurpose, and remind.
Because the real value of AI isn’t that it replaces people — it’s that it frees people to do the work only they can do.
And in a world drowning in busyness, that’s a revolution worth embracing.
Note: ChatGPT Training
If you'd like to find out more about how you can offload the boring work to ChatGPT, feel free to book a training session with me where we look at your business processes and work out how to optimise your time.