S2. Ep20 - The AI Glow-Up: What's Changed Since Last Year

Katie (00:26)

Hello, welcome back to another episode. Hi, hello, I'm Katie and as always I've got Noel here with me. Hi Noel, how are you doing?

Noel (00:35)

Yeah, I'm doing great this week. How are you doing?

Katie (00:37)

Yeah, all good, thank you. We have been away. Noel and I were away last week in Norway. We went from the rain in the UK to the rain in Norway.

Noel (00:49)

Yeah, but it was cooler than the week before.

Katie (00:54)

Yes. And we had the beautiful scenery of the Norwegian fjords.

Noel (01:01)

Brilliant. Loved it.

Katie (01:03)

Loved it. We have some updates this week, or just one update, I believe.

Noel (01:14)

Yeah, so there was one little update that came out yesterday. I'm sure Apple would see it as not a very little update. But what they're doing is they're finally upgrading Siri AI, which is quite exciting to see. They actually, I'd forgotten, they got sued in 2024 because they missold the Apple Intelligence. So people went out and bought all these new iPhones and what have you and were just like, this is rubbish. So they basically owed every single user $95 or something.

But to rectify that, they've gone off, they've had multiple years to think about it, and they decided not to bother with their own AI agents. They're going to use Gemini instead. So it's going to be really awesome to see when it comes out. It has a little pop-down widget. So as you're talking to it and say, could you find me this email, your widget by your camera notch pops down and it'll be like a button to go, yeah, I found it, here it is with a link, and you can click the link and off you go into your emails. And there's maps built into it. Very, very clever.

Katie (02:39)

Do you know when that's being released?

Noel (02:41)

So that should be with the next iOS and macOS release, whenever that will be. It's usually around September, isn't it? I think it's going to be for the next big jump. But on the iPhone, you'll only be able to use it on 17 Pro and anything that comes after. So yeah.

Katie (03:11)

I can't use it either. That is just another way I feel that Apple are trying to get people to buy new devices.

Noel (03:29)

It is, but I guess that was kind of what they were sued for in 2024. So it's a bit of a risky gamble again. But hey.

Katie (03:37)

I feel like Apple do it because when your device gets to a particular age, you then can't update it anymore or the battery goes on it, which isn't great.

Noel (03:46)

Yeah. But as it's backed by Gemini models, it should be far better than Apple Intelligence, fingers crossed. So can't wait to see that come out. Not that I'm going to buy a new phone. Definitely not.

Katie (04:00)

Okay, so usually on this podcast we are teaching you something, maybe telling you about new software that's come out after the part of the podcast where we've told you the updates and news. We then go into the main part and it's usually us telling you about something. But the amount of questions that we receive are always about how we use AI and how we use different platforms, different software, how we decide what AI to use, and all of those interesting things. So we thought we would dedicate this podcast episode to giving you an insight about how both of us decide what AI to use, what software to use, and what platforms to go with.

Noel (05:10)

Yeah, switch it around.

Katie (05:12)

Let's jump into it. I'll let you start us off.

Noel (05:16)

Okay. So I guess to start off with, we'll talk about how we figure out what software we're going to use. Because as you know, if you've followed anything in the AI space, there's so much news, there's so much hype, there's so much stuff that gets thrown at you. And I guess as a business owner, it's kind of hard to figure out, well, what do I actually need?

What are these features that are going to be helpful and useful to me and my business? And we have the same approach. So everything that comes out, we either just look at it and go, well, what does this mean? Is it going to help us in any way, shape, or form? Is this going to be something that's going to cost us money and actually not do anything helpful, which is not ideal.

So the way I always look at these things is, is it going to have that tangible benefit? Am I going to use this on a daily basis? Is this just going to be something that I'm going to use once and then forget about it? If it runs into that I'm going to use it once and forget about it territory, then I don't even bother. I just park it. I might watch something on YouTube about it just to have a general idea of what's going on and then just forget about it, put it to one side.

But the thing that I find really important is the first big step, the first big thing you need to worry about, is which AI platform as a business owner are you going to get into first? So there's the three main players. You've got your ChatGPT, you've got your Claude, and you've got your Gemini. Everyone's going to have their opinions on which one's best for them, whether that be response style or price, features, all that good stuff. You could already be tied into a Google account, so you're probably already half paying for these AI features. So it makes sense to stay with Gemini, which is fair enough. Every business is different.

But for us, we started off as ChatGPT, didn't we, ages ago when it first came out. We made the decision almost about six months ago now, we were just like, that's it. We're gonna cut ties and we're gonna move on. We're gonna say goodbye to ChatGPT. We'd had enough. And we decided to shift all of our business processes into Claude, mainly because we like the platform, we like the responses, we like the reliability, and really the trajectory that the business was going in and still is today.

So getting that piece, I think, for most businesses is probably the most important. If you've got teams of people that you might manage, you've got to factor those guys in as well. Most of them might be in one camp and not another. And it's saying, well, is it then a pain to train them to use a different platform? But I would say, first step, get that bit solved or in place and then from there we can branch out.

Katie (08:45)

I would say the main mistake that people make when choosing the right system or software is just looking at the price alone and not actually really considering the usability. So whether it flows nicely, it's easy to understand, it's easy to pick up. Is this actually going to do the job that you want it to do?

Whereas I think so many people are just focused on, well, this is actually within my budget, so I'm gonna make it work. But then you spend a lot of hours fighting against it or feeling frustrated because actually it doesn't quite do what you want it to do or it's a little bit clunky. And most of these softwares or systems do have a free trial that you can check out. And if you are planning on getting your team, if you have a team, to use it as well, then maybe get them to test it out.

But you kind of want to make sure that it does exactly what you want it to do and the usability is there. Because I think you mentioned this just now, Noel, about getting sucked into the hype.

Noel (10:30)

Yeah, it's dangerous.

Katie (10:32)

These softwares and systems, they're marketing you and they want you to see their ad or see other people talking about it, who are probably affiliates. They want you to have that hype, that FOMO, fear of missing out, that you have to buy this, you cannot run your business without it.

But actually sometimes just taking a beat, taking some time. And if there is a time limit on it, usually you can message the person or the company advertising it and they'll usually let you in at the price you saw advertised. So I always think don't get caught up in that hype, that excitement. Just take a beat and actually go, right, what does this software or system actually do? And is this what I need it to do for my business?

And I think this leads us nicely, Noel, into something that you've experienced before when you've gone to look at a platform or software and it's got a long list of things that it can do, but actually you just want it to do three or four things. So rather than paying the premium monthly cost for all of these features that you're only going to use three or four of, you've actually decided, well, actually I'm gonna build this myself.

Noel (12:07)

Yeah, so I did this, this must have been last month now. But I wanted to do some keyword research and stuff. I wanted to see what demand was for certain keywords and what have you. And if you Google any platforms that do that, you've got Ahrefs, SEMrush and all those sorts of stuff. They cost a lot of money. Starting price of like $100 going upwards quite steeply from there.

So I was like, I don't need all of that information. So what I did is I went off and dug around and found what they're getting this data from. It's got to have mined it from somewhere. So I found a platform where you could try it for free to start with. Plugged it into Claude Code. Said, look, this is what I want to happen, this is the app I want to build. And it was like, sure, I can do that with that API. And off it went and just built it.

So it works really well. I can put in keywords, it'll give me loads of search results. It will even look at alternate keywords and things like that and score everything. Which is perfect for what I needed. But I did all of that for, well, I think each run cost me about six pence maximum.

Katie (13:59)

And can you remember how much the other platform was going to cost you?

Noel (14:08)

So I think the base price was $100 a month. I think with SEO tools, they've just gone parabolic in price. It's really crazy money. So yeah, I'm saving a lot of money because I don't really need to do that many searches. I just wanted something quick and easy. Jump in, do a quick search, brilliant. I can either pass it into Claude to do some detailed analysis or see it for myself and go off and do some work with it.

I just do a couple of searches a month. So it's only costing me, well, it's not even 50p for what I need it for. But that platform did say, now you've used your free credits, you've got to chuck in $50 and we'll use that as your ongoing credit. And I was like, sure, I'm not going to get through that in a hurry. So why not? It's still cheaper than one month's subscription to something which had all the bells and whistles which I wasn't particularly interested in.

So yeah, it is really possible these days to just go off and build those sorts of apps. Obviously you've got to be careful with security and stuff for businesses. You do need to be mindful of that and who has access to what. But I wouldn't be scared of doing it. Some people I meet are just like, well, I can see it's going to be good that I could do this thing, but I'm worried about doing it.

But if you're just running it locally on your laptop or your PC, who cares if it doesn't work? Just give it a go. You can use Claude Code or Codex or Gemini CLI or whatever they've got these days and just go off and give it a go. See what you can come up with. It might look terrible. It usually does the first time. But you can always ask Claude to make it look nicer and give it some brand guidelines and it'll make it look like something your business has built. It's really quite straightforward to do these days. I think we're quite spoiled in the coding world at the minute compared to what we used to be.

Katie (16:40)

So I think the key thing here is shop around and see what else you can find. If the platform or the app is at a premium rate and you're not using all of the features. But saying that, you and I don't use all the features within Claude and we both pay a monthly fee for Claude. I know you got asked the other day how to use Claude Dispatch.

Noel (17:19)

Yes, I got asked that yesterday and I was like, I forgot it was even there. I tried it when it first came out just to give it a go. But it's just, I would say you don't have to use everything. I don't use everything. I wouldn't suggest anybody does a deep dive and uses absolutely everything. Just use what you need to use.

Later on down the line I might really love Dispatch. I don't know, in six months' time it could be the best thing ever, something that I wish I'd started today. But right now I can get on and do what I need to do without it. So I just park it and it's still there. It's not going to go anywhere. I can still use it whenever I wish. Which is always important.

Katie (18:11)

I don't use a lot of the features within Claude, but I find the things that I do use within Claude worth my monthly fee. And I think that's important, isn't it? It's just kind of like, am I actually using this enough to warrant the monthly fee, rather than thinking I've got to use all of it to squeeze every last ounce of goodness for my money out of it.

Noel (18:49)

Yeah, because even though I don't use the features, Claude is slightly different compared to the other two, mainly because they're really strict on usage limits. So the more you pay, the more usage you get per hour, per week, however they work it out. So I went straight up onto one of the bigger plans just to get extra usage because I knew I was going to use Claude Code and it would burn through those usage limits. So I was like, right, I'm just going to get as much use as I can. And I hammer that usage every single day.

Katie (19:21)

And just going back to the hype and things we see on the internet, maybe it's other creators telling us that we need this in our business, or other business owners telling us how they've made 20 million dollars by using this. I think at that point it's really remembering to think about how you run your business. How do you sell your offers? What offers do you want to sell? And how do you want your business to look and feel?

Because I think that's really important. If there's a content creator or a business owner who's been in business over 10 years and maybe you're in your first year, how they run their business is going to be completely different to how you run yours as someone who's just starting out.

And sometimes we try to grow too quickly or have all the bells and whistles too quickly. And I feel like sometimes we can waste money or waste time by doing that. If you've got lots of people completing your online form to work with you on a one-to-one basis and you need that automation in place, then great. But if you've only got a couple of people a month, do you really need an automation costing you a certain amount per month? The answer is probably no.

I've seen so many things on Instagram in particular where people are promoting like, this automation made my business 20 million. And this person in particular has probably been running their business for 12 years now. So I think it's just remembering to catch yourself before you think, oh my God, I've got to have that because I want to make 20 million. You're motivated and passionate, which is amazing. But before you jump in and feel like you have to buy this or have this automation, just ask yourself, how is this going to fit into my business? Is this going to help me save time? Is it going to help me get more business? Is there a real tangible result or data that you can track?

If you just think it's a nice to have, then think about whether you actually need to be spending money on this or going down a rabbit hole setting this up. Because that's what people are getting sucked into right now. And a lot of it people don't even need. It's people going, I've made this automation and it's made me ten thousand dollars. But it's them selling a twenty-dollar ebook to their audience of 200,000, which isn't gonna work for someone who's got an audience of 500.

Noel (23:38)

Yeah, unless it's a very big ticket and they all buy it, which is unlikely.

Katie (23:47)

So it's kind of just thinking about those things. I don't think a lot of people do think about it. I would just hate for people to waste money, waste time, waste their energy when actually they could be focusing on their business, running their business, creating new offers and selling those offers. And it goes back to, if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Noel (24:20)

Yeah, exactly. I kind of fell into this trap as well, especially when it came to building automations. I got a bit addicted to that, as we all know. I'm less addicted to it these days. But I would go off and build really complicated calendar booking systems and stuff. So yeah, it was great that if somebody came through and went through that automation, it went down all the right routes and all this amazing stuff happened. But I could have just done it myself.

We're not dealing with hundreds of bookings a day. It's one or two a month or a couple of weeks or whatever. That's completely doable for me. I don't need all of that. So I wasted all those hours for not a great deal of return. So I'd always assess that first as well, just to make sure you're doing something that's definitely worthwhile.

Katie (25:24)

So just a recap. It's just being mindful of what you are paying for. Are you using enough of the features or feel like you're getting your money's worth before signing up to something? Or do you maybe need to shop around and look to see if there's something else that's suitable? Maybe with fewer features or more features, who knows. Just making sure that it's right for you. Not getting sucked into that hype or feeling like you're missing out or that you're not gonna make an extra 20 million just because you don't download this free ebook or this 30-dollar course.

Noel (26:24)

Yeah, if it did make that sort of money we'd all do it, wouldn't we? We'd all be millionaires.

Katie (26:31)

Exactly.

Noel (26:34)

Unfortunately not. Not yet.

Katie (26:39)

So that was this week's episode. We hope you enjoyed listening to how we assess what AI and automations to use for our business and our separate businesses as well. If you've got any questions or if you feel like you've got something you want to say to us or ask us, you can email us at hello@makeautomations.ai. Or you can join our free group over on LinkedIn, which is called AI Automations for Business. You are welcome to join. It's completely free. There's no upsell. You can come and tell us what you're building, what you're using AI or automations for. If you've got questions, you can drop them in there, or if you've got any ideas for us to talk about on the podcast, then just let us know.

But thank you so much for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this episode and we'll catch you next time for another one very soon.