Where AI Actually Helps in Your Role: A Field Guide for Operations, HR, EAs, and Chiefs of Staff
The most common mistake I see people make with AI is starting with the tool.
They sign up for ChatGPT or Claude or Copilot, stare at the blinking cursor, and try to think of something to do. A few half-useful prompts later, they decide AI is overhyped and go back to their day.
That's a tooling mindset. And it's the wrong way in.
If you actually want AI to make a dent in your work, you have to start with your role, not with the model. Here's the framework I use, and how it plays out for some of the most common operational roles I work with.
Operations Is the Goalkeeper Position. Here's How AI Made Me the MVP.
Operations is the goalkeeper position — nobody notices the saves until one gets missed. How AI sharpened my goalkeeper instincts, and why sharing those wins with your team is the real MVP move.
AI Isn't Replacing Workers. Leadership Is.
A few different countries have started saying the quiet part out loud: AI is going to replace large portions of the workforce, and they're not going to pretend otherwise.
The rest of the business world is paying attention. Boardrooms are running the numbers. Consultants are pitching "AI workforce optimization" decks that are really just headcount-reduction plans with a new label. And the conversation has clearly moved from "if" to "when."
Why Operations Is the One Role AI Can't Replace — and Why Founders Keep Trying
There's an assumption baked into a lot of early-stage thinking right now: that the operations function — the people who keep the company running — is the next obvious target for AI replacement. Founders are looking at their org chart, seeing the cost of an experienced operator, and quietly wondering if they can skip the hire and let AI cover it.
I understand the temptation. The tooling is impressive. The economics look good on paper. And there's no shortage of voices on LinkedIn telling founders that "ops is the first to go."
It isn't. And the companies finding that out the hard way are already starting to reverse course.
This is the piece I want every founder scaling past early stage to read before they make a workforce decision they'll spend a year unwinding.
The AI Layoff Reversal Has Started. Here's What Operations Leaders Should Take From It.
The companies that cut hardest in the name of AI are quietly rehiring. Here's what the data says — and how operations leaders can make the case for building over cutting.
AI Isn't Doing My Job. It's Giving Me My Strategic Brain Back.
There's a version of the AI conversation I'm tired of.
The one where AI is either coming for everyone's job, or it's a magic button that does the work for you. Both takes miss what's actually happening — at least in mine.
AI isn't doing my job. It's making me more efficient at the parts of my job that were never the point in the first place. And the time it's giving back is showing me something uncomfortable: I had quietly turned strategic thinking into repetitive duty. AI is the thing that pulled me out of it.