Make AI More Useful Before Asking For Another Idea. AI can produce another list before your tea gets cold.
The more valuable job is helping you understand the person who might actually need what you know.
By Starting With The Customer, Make AI More Useful
A clever answer is not automatically a useful answer.
Start with the human problem before asking the machine to create anything.
Make AI More Useful By Asking Better Questions
Your AI Personal Assistance Crew becomes more valuable when you stop asking it to think instead of you.
Give it something real to investigate.
The Great AI Idea Machine Never Seems To Run Out Of Paper. An entertaining little routine is happening at kitchen tables and spare-room desks everywhere. Somebody opens an AI assistant, types, “Give me ten ideas for my next blog post,” and before the kettle has finished boiling, there they are. Ten ideas. Feeling ambitious, our new publisher asks for another ten. Then twenty headlines. Then perhaps a thirty-day content calendar because we have accidentally become the editor of a national newspaper before breakfast. It is impressive, certainly. The machine never sighs, never says it has run out of inspiration, and never disappears to the pub because the deadline is getting uncomfortable. The trouble is that somebody else can sit down ten minutes later and ask a very similar question.
Today’s part of the masterclass calls this sort of idea generation the “low-hanging fruit” of using AI. The point isn’t that asking for an outline or a few ideas is wrong. Those things can be enormously useful. The warning is that they are the obvious use of the technology and may produce material built from information the AI has already learned rather than something distinctive to your own market, customer or experience. The masterclass wants us to use AI at a more involved level than simply asking it to fill an empty page.
Make AI More Useful Before Mistaking More Ideas For Progress
That matters particularly for the everyday learner coming online with decades of experience already sitting behind them. The interesting material is not necessarily hiding inside the AI. It may be sitting in the story of the business you once ran, the mistake you learned never to repeat, the shortcut an older tradesman taught you, the way you calmed an awkward customer or the lesson that took twenty years before it finally made sense.#######
########Asking AI to replace that material with generic ideas would be like having a cupboard full of seasoned ingredients and ordering a packet mix because it’s quicker. Make AI More Useful by giving it your raw material rather than asking it to invent your identity.
The Customer Was Sitting There Before The Keyword Arrived
The masterclass then makes a useful turn. It asks what content is actually trying to achieve. Whether the vehicle is YouTube, a podcast or another form of content, the answer it gives is not simply ranking for a keyword. It says the larger aim is to build trust with the people watching or reading. That changes the job considerably. If trust matters, our first concern cannot merely be what sentence an algorithm might like. We need some idea of the problem the person on the other side of the screen is trying to solve and the goal they are trying to reach.
That does not mean keywords stop mattering. They help people find the door. But once somebody has walked through it, repeating the words painted on the sign above the entrance will not keep them there. They need to recognise something of themselves in what follows. A retiree searching for help with AI may technically type “best AI tools for beginners,” but behind those five words could be a much more human worry. Perhaps he fears wasting money. Perhaps she has opened three platforms and found every one confusing. Perhaps both have begun wondering whether this new digital world arrived twenty years too late for them. The keyword found the visitor. Understanding keeps the conversation alive.
A Reader Can Smell A Brochure Before Reaching The Second Paragraph
We have all encountered the opposite. You click an article because the headline appears to understand the question in your head, only to discover the page exists mainly to march you towards somebody’s affiliate button. The wording may be polished. Every heading may have been optimised. There might even be little green ticks glowing reassuringly somewhere behind the scenes. Yet within two paragraphs you know the writer is more interested in the product than the predicament that brought you there. Nobody has committed a crime. It simply feels like a brochure pretending to be a conversation.
The masterclass argues that content that builds trust begins with a firm understanding of what the customer is trying to do or solve. That is a useful standard for our own work because it forces the sales machinery to wait outside for a moment. Before recommending anything, could we describe what life looks like for the person who might need it? What have they already tried? What is irritating them? What are they afraid of getting wrong? What would count as a small victory by teatime? Those answers provide better writing material than another list of “ten trending topics.”
Make AI More Useful By Giving It Something Real To Investigate
Now our AI Personal Assistance Crew gets a much more interesting assignment. Instead of saying, “Give me ideas for retirees using AI,” we can bring something tangible to the desk. Our reader has forty years of work experience but doesn’t know how any of it could be useful online. We know he finds modern software overwhelming. We know he would rather learn one small job properly than sit through six hours of technical instruction. We know he does not want a fantasy promising ten thousand pounds next Tuesday; he wants evidence that one manageable step can lead somewhere worthwhile. Now the Crew has something to work with.
The masterclass describes using AI to research the customer’s situation in greater depth, rather than merely requesting another outline. Its later method explores what it calls the customer’s current reality and the undesirable effects created by the problem they have not yet solved. AI can then help widen our thinking by suggesting aspects of that reality we may not have considered ourselves. That is assistance with substance. We provided a real-world situation; the AI helps us examine it from multiple angles.
Experience Gives The Crew What The Internet Cannot Supply For You.
This is where the retired beginner may possess a considerable advantage without realising it. Artificial intelligence has enormous stores of information, but it hasn’t spent thirty-five years dealing with your customers. It was not standing beside you when an apprentice made the mistake that became the story everybody laughed about for the next decade. It did not watch a business survive a difficult year, raise your children, manage a difficult colleague or discover that the expensive answer was occasionally less useful than the simple one sitting in the van. Those experiences are not inconveniences to remove from the content. They are the material that can make the content recognisably yours.
Our Crew therefore works best when the relationship runs in the right direction. Human experience goes in. AI assistance works on it. Human judgement decides what comes out. That is a very different proposition from pressing a button and hoping artificial intelligence discovers something interesting on our behalf. The more personal, specific and genuine the raw material, the more useful the assistant can become when organising it, challenging it or helping connect it to the problem somebody else is trying to solve.
Trust Begins Before We Ever Say The Words “Trust Me”
Nobody particularly trusts somebody because they announce, “You can trust me.” In fact, that sentence can have roughly the same effect as a stranger beginning with, “I’m not trying to sell you anything.” The wallet instinctively moves half an inch deeper into the pocket. Trust usually arrives more quietly. Somebody describes the problem you have been struggling with and gets it right. They mention the frustration you thought only you had noticed. They don’t immediately race toward a miracle cure. For a few minutes, you feel as though the person speaking has actually spent some time understanding where you are standing.
That is where today’s masterclass is taking us. It says the content should demonstrate an understanding of the customer’s problem rather than simply claiming to understand it. Tomorrow’s section of this same post can take us deeper into how that works—the problem itself, the undesirable effects it creates, and what the masterclass calls the customer’s current reality. Once we understand that, AI has a far better job than producing another headline.
It can help us understand the human being behind the headline.
And that’s where Make AI More Useful stops being another lesson about artificial intelligence.
It becomes a lesson about people.
Make AI More Useful By Looking At What The Problem Causes
A problem rarely travels alone. It usually brings a few unwanted friends. Somebody might say, “I don’t understand AI,” but that sentence can hide several consequences. They waste evenings jumping between tutorials. They hesitate to publish because they fear looking foolish. They buy software they never properly use. They watch younger people apparently racing ahead and quietly conclude they may have waited too long. By the time somebody arrives at our article, the original problem may have been joined by frustration, lost confidence, and that particularly irritating feeling that everybody else received an instruction manual which somehow never came through their letterbox.
The masterclass calls these the problem’s undesirable effects. It argues that useful content should recognise and verbalise those effects because it shows we understand more than the label attached to the problem. For example, it is not enough to know somebody wants more retirement income. What does the shortage actually change? What choices become harder? What worries appear? What happens if the goal remains unsolved? Those consequences help reveal the customer’s real situation, and that is where trust begins to grow.
Make AI More Useful By Understanding Today’s Reality
This is what the masterclass calls the customer’s current reality, and I like the phrase because it pushes us away from imaginary marketing people with perfect little demographic profiles. A current reality looks more like an actual Tuesday. The computer is on. There are twelve tabs open. Somebody has spent an hour trying to understand a tool they were told was easy. They have a lifetime of useful experience but cannot see how to package any of it. A pension arrives every month, the bills arrive with considerably greater enthusiasm, and the thought of earning a little extra online sounds attractive until the internet starts speaking a language apparently invented at a conference nobody invited them to.
If we can describe that Tuesday accurately, the reader does not need us to announce, “We understand you.” The recognition happens by itself. The masterclass makes this point clearly: understanding the customer’s current reality and the undesirable effects of the unsolved problem can build trust more effectively than simply claiming empathy. It also acknowledges that we may not capture the full reality in a single video or article. Different pieces of content can explore different angles over time. That suits our workshop perfectly. We are not trying to solve retirement, AI and online business in one afternoon. We are helping one person recognise the next manageable step.
The Future Needs To Look Better Without Looking Like Fantasy Island
Once we understand where somebody is standing, we can ask a much more interesting question: what would life look like if this particular problem were solved? The masterclass calls this the alternative or future reality. Notice that it does not require us to produce the usual internet fantasy involving a laptop beside an infinity pool and somebody apparently earning £47,000 before breakfast. The future reality can be wonderfully modest. Perhaps the person understands which AI assistant to ask for help. Maybe they finish their first useful PDF. Perhaps they publish a blog post without taking three days over it. Maybe the first email subscriber appears.
Those small changes matter because they are believable. Our retiree does not necessarily want to become the next Silicon Valley billionaire. He may want to stop feeling bewildered whenever someone mentions a prompt. She may want enough confidence to turn forty years of experience into something her grandchildren can find online. Another person may want that first small commission as proof that the process is real. Make AI More Useful by helping people see a future they can actually imagine themselves reaching. Hope becomes far more powerful with muddy boots on rather than wings and a Lamborghini.
Make AI More Useful By Building The Bridge Between The Two
Now we have two points on the map. On one side sits today’s reality: confusion, unfinished ideas, perhaps no clear product and too many tools shouting for attention. On the other sits a better reality: clarity, one useful asset, a small audience, a working process and perhaps eventually the first sale. The masterclass describes the work between those two points as mapping—moving the customer from the current reality toward the future reality. It says this can happen across a series of videos rather than requiring everything to be accomplished in one piece of content.
That is exactly what our Passive Income Workshop has become, without needing a complicated name. START does not promise the whole journey. BUILD moves somebody further. CREATE gives them something tangible. REACH introduces the outside world. FIRST SALE gives the road a destination. Each lesson is another plank across the bridge. We do not stand on the opposite bank shouting, “Come on, it’s easy.” We put another board down where the reader can safely place a foot. That is much more useful marketing because the teaching itself becomes the route.
This Is Where The AI Crew Gets A Much Better Research Job
Here is the moment today’s lesson really earns its place in the AI Personal Assistance Crew. Suppose we understand our reader reasonably well but suspect we are missing something. Instead of asking ChatGPT or another assistant for “ten blog ideas about retirees and AI,” give it the current reality and ask it to investigate. What frustrations might follow from this situation? What could somebody fear losing? What might stop them taking the next step? Which assumptions might an experienced online marketer make that a complete beginner would never make? What would a modest but meaningful improvement look like from the reader’s point of view?
That is the use of AI the masterclass is encouraging. We give the system something real and tangible, then use it to expand our thinking around the customer’s current reality and potential downsides. AI may surface consequences or angles we had not considered ourselves. We still have to judge what sounds true. The machine does not magically know our customer better than we do. But as a research assistant questioning the situation from several directions, it can be considerably more valuable than another machine handing us twenty headlines.
A Keyword Opens The Door, But Understanding Invites Them To Sit Down
A lovely collision exists here between SEO and humanity. We spend time finding four-word keyword phrases because people have to discover the article somehow. That is sensible. But imagine doing everything perfectly for the search engine, only to forget the person who actually arrives. We could rank for the exact phrase they typed, put it in the title, repeat it in the subheadings, and celebrate every green tick — only to produce a page that shows no understanding whatsoever of why they searched in the first place. We would have successfully opened the front door, only to leave the visitor standing in the hall.
The masterclass specifically argues that keyword-optimised content can still use this current-to-future-reality approach. Its point is that discovery and trust do not have to be at odds. A keyword can bring the right person to the video or article; understanding their situation can give them a reason to continue. That is why our SEO should support the Fleet Street story rather than replace it. Make AI More Useful is today’s search phrase. The human question underneath it is much richer: How could this technology actually make my life easier rather than adding another layer of confusion?
Ten Thousand Views Cannot Shake Your Hand.
The masterclass finishes this argument by putting the numbers back in perspective. For the type of commercial content it discusses, its concern is not simply collecting likes, comments or enormous view counts. It wants real people to watch useful content, follow real links, join a real list and eventually investigate real products or services. It explicitly distinguishes that model from an entertainment or inspiration channel where audience volume itself may play a different role.
That is wonderfully compatible with our own calm approach. We do not need every retiree in Britain. We need the person who recognises the problem we are discussing today. If fifty people watch and five think, That’s exactly where I’m stuck, those five are worth paying attention to. One may return tomorrow. One may join the list. One may eventually become the first customer for something created from a lifetime of experience. That is not viral marketing. It is relationship building, and AI can help us do it more thoughtfully if we stop asking it merely to manufacture more noise.
Open to See This Video, And This Is What’s Already Built,
Trained & Waiting For Your First Command.
Apprentice Task: Give Your Crew A Real Person To Understand
Today’s Apprentice Task begins with one person, not one tool. Take a sheet of paper and describe the person you want today’s piece of content to help. Do not begin with age, gender, or marketing jargon. Begin with the problem. Then write three undesirable effects that might be happening because that problem remains unsolved. Underneath those, describe their current reality in two or three ordinary sentences. What does the problem look like during their actual day? Finally, write one paragraph describing their future reality after making useful progress. Keep it believable. We are looking for improvement, not a lottery win.
Now give that information to one member of your AI Personal Assistance Crew and ask it to help you investigate what you may have missed. Ask for additional frustrations, fears, obstacles, and small desirable outcomes that could reasonably follow from the situation you described. Then comes the important human part: check the answers. Keep what sounds true. Reject what sounds invented, exaggerated, or completely unlike your reader.
You have now used AI in a different way
You did not ask it for an idea.
You gave it a human situation to investigate.
And that, Pal, is how we make AI more useful.
The machine helps us examine the road.
The human still decides where it leads.