Over the past couple of months, I’ve been geeking out over AI Agents to automate as much of my business as possible.

Most people are on board with using AI for ideas and content generation.

But that’s just scratching the surface of what’s possible.

So, what is an AI Agent?

I look on AI Agents as a digital assistant I train to perform a specific task.

With a little imagination and a lot of process based thinking there aren’t many processes that AI Agents can’t assist you with.

Here are 3 ways I use AI Agents to grow my online business.

Use AI Agents to free up time for high-value activities

AI Agents are great at automating mundane tasks.

If you can define a process for a task, you can build an AI Agent to complete that task. This applies to everything from customer service to social media management and repurposing to data entry. Not only will this save you time, but it also ensures consistency and accuracy.

With the repetitive tasks taken care of, you and your team are free to focus on the big stuff, like lead generation, sales, and fulfillment.

Use AI Agents to simplify data-driven decisions

AI Agents can process lots of data quickly.

Whether that’s pulling data from your ad account and reporting on your best-performing creatives or analyzing member surveys to identify key pain points and frustrations, you can build an AI Agent to summarize and suggest your best next steps.

This is one of the areas I’m getting the most value from AI, especially after the launch of ChatGPT-4.o.

Use AI Agent to improve your customer’s experience

We need to be careful with this one.

There’s nothing more frustrating than talking to a Chatbot that doesn’t understand our problem. BUT we can use AI agents to give instant and real-time support 24/7. The key to making this a valuable experience is to give our customers the power to switch to human interaction whenever they want.

Watch this space. Customer service will be one of the first areas that Ai will truly revolutionize.

Remember we are still very early in the AI game.

It’s a matter of taking simple and consistent steps to integrating AI into your business.

But there are only two options.

1. Sit back and wait until your competition forces you to adopt AI
2. Embrace it and get early movers advantage

Let’s face it. ChatGPT is pretty rubbish at most tasks.

Don’t get me wrong; not a day goes by that I’m not blown away by what AI can do.

But I’ve never yet sat back and said…. WOW…. I could never have done that.

Today, AI is like an overconfident intern during their first week at a new job.

You’ll always get an answer that initially sounds great, but very quickly, you’ll spot some big holes.

The problem is not the AI itself but how the AI has been trained.

Unfortunately, there is more incorrect information on the internet than correct information.

And that’s what our AI has been trained on. So what’s the solution?

Well, just like with your new intern, if you want a specific output from your AI, you need to train it.

And that’s exactly why you need to build your own CustomGPT.

Here are 3 simple steps to get started.

Step 1 – Prepare your CustomGPT training material

The first step is to assemble your training material.

You can have as many CustomGPT as you want. I prefer building multiple specialized GPT’s rather than one or two more general ones. You could have one for marketing content creation, one for drafting meta ads, and one for SEO. Training content can include samples, frameworks, methodologies, and processes.

The more content you train your CustomGPT on, the better it will perform.

Step 2 – Create your CustomGPT

Building your CustomGPT is easy.

In your program of choice, click on create CustomGPT, give your bot a name, and mark it as private. Also, select the option not to share your uploaded training material with the model. One of the reasons I love Poe.com is that I can pick which LLM to use for my CustomGPT.

Now that we’ve built the shell of our CustomGPT, it’s time to train it.

Step 3 – Train your CustomGPT

There are two parts to the training process.

The first step is to tell your CustomGPT what its role is. This gives your GPT context for what you expect from it. The second step is to upload your training data and processes to tell your CustomGPT how to complete the tasks you will ask it to do.

And, remember you can add to your CustomGPT’s knowledge base anytime you want.

If you want to get the most from AI and start practically implementing it in your business, it’s important to move past one-off prompts.

Just as when your business grows, you recruit more specialists to your team…..

As your AI use grows, you want to build and train specialist GPTs.

So, what’s the first CustomGPT you’d like to build?

Do you have dedicated AI exploration time every week?

Time that you are free to play? Time with zero expected output?

If you said NO, you are probably the same as 99% of online business owners.

I’ve used AI almost every day for 5-6 years, but I even struggle with dedicated AI playtime.

The fact is, it can’t stay that way for long. AI is coming, and there is no stopping it.

So, what do we need to do as online business owners?

Let’s dive into it….

What is AI lacking?

AI doesn’t have and never will have human intuition.

Sure, AGI (when it comes) will have something akin to human intuition, but it will never have the same feel for your business and your customers as you do. Successful online business owners all have one thing in common – an almost telepathic connection with their audience.

The role of intuition in business success is underappreciated today, and it will become even more important in the future.

What does that mean for you?

As AI reaches further and further into our business operations, we need to develop intuition checkpoints.

I see it every day in the sea of putrid ChatGPT garbage that people post on social media and use in their ad copy. Sure, all the individual words make sense, and it’s said confidently, but it completely misses the mark. Yes, AI is the way forward, but we need to control it and shape it based on our intuition.

In an odd twist of fate, AI will force us to connect with and document our intuition, a practice most business owners have never consciously undertaken before.

How can you use AI to get ahead of your competition?

So, the real opportunity lies in leveraging AI to build a more human business. Who would have thought!? 

The unthinking online business owner will see AI as an opportunity to cut costs, reduce workload and spam the world with crappy content. The smart business owner will leverage AI to create a more connected and human experience for their clients. Sometimes, it’s funny how things work out. 

If you want to win during the initial 10-year adoption phase, this is where the real opportunity lies.

The opportunity in AI is massive, but so many people misunderstand where the real opportunity lies.

And don’t worry, you are not behind.

If you are reading this, you are still early to AI.

But, the earlier you start your journey, the better positioned you’ll be to take full advantage.

And we need to be ready because the rate of AI adoption is starting to make the Dotcom Age look like the Stone Age.

GPT-4o is now free to all ChatGPT users.

Many online business owners and marketers have been asking themselves the same question.

Should I cancel my $20 monthly paid subscription to ChatGPT if I can get the newest and most powerful model for free?

My simple answer is NO.

Here are 3 reasons I think you need to keep your subscription:

Chat limitations

On the free model, you are limited to 10-16 chats per 3-hour period.

While 10-16 chats sound like a lot, you get the best outputs by breaking big prompts into smaller sequential prompts. You can burn through 5 – 6 prompts for even basic tasks very quickly. The last thing you want to be worried about is hitting your limits.

One of the primary strengths of AI today is unlimited iterations. If you rely on the free version, you lose this ability.

Defaults to GPT3.5 after limits

Once you hit your limit on the free plan, you default back to GPT3.5.

GPT3.5 is a significant step backward from GPT-4 on all fronts. Earlier this year, I noticed that the quality of the pre-work research and brainstorming my team produced for my blogs declined rapidly. After a little investigation, it turned out one team member’s ChatGPT subscription failed, and she was working in GPT-3.5.

Only then did I realize how big the output quality difference between 3.5 and 4 was.

GPT-4o is free to all, but GPT-5 will be pay-to-play

Don’t miss your chance to get first access to GPT-5.

GPT-5 is the release we are all waiting for. GPT-4o is a little step up, but GPT-5 will be a giant leap forward. To test the model and protect server resources, OpenAI will likely only offer GPT-5 to its paid tier first before making a limited version available to free users.

I want to be first in line when GPT-5 is released.

Even if I only use ChatGPT for 5 minutes a month, it will save me and make me more than the $20-a-month subscription. 

OpenAI doesn’t care about the revenue from their premium subscription.

But they will use it as a filter for access to new features and models.

I’m happy to pay $240 a year to be at the front of the line.