This week’s prompt will help you map a real process. But don’t rush to improve it.
Watch your own thinking as you go. Where you step in. Where you correct. Where you add context.
That’s the muscle you’re building. Our processes will change and adapt as AI integrates into our tools.
Your Prompt
I want to map and improve a real process in my business, but I don’t have it fully defined.
Start by asking me questions, one at a time, to help me lay out the steps of a process I regularly perform.
As we go:
Help me clarify each step in plain language
Identify where the process feels unclear, repetitive, or dependent on judgment
Flag where AI could assist in a realistic way (not hypothetical)
Once we’ve mapped the process:
Show me a cleaner version of the workflow
Identify where AI would help, where it would likely fail, and where I still need to think
Suggest how this might look if it were built into my core software
Do not rush to solutions. Focus first on helping me see the process clearly.
Pushing Against The Grain
The majority of the economic growth from Al won’t ultimately come from clever prompts or cobbled-together workflows.
It's going to come from AI in our everyday systems… inside the tools you already use.
The accounting software will get smarter. CRMs will start writing follow-ups and building pricing models. Reporting tools will explain the numbers instead of just displaying them.
Computers and phones will ship with agents pre-installed.
And most companies will adopt AI the same way they adopted every other innovation…
once it shows up inside the products they already trust and does most of the legwork for them.
Which creates a tempting question…
If that’s how this plays out, why not just wait?
Why spend time duct-taping tools together today when the “real” solution will eventually be built in?
Three reasons.
First… you’re training your judgment.
Right now, the tools are inconsistent. Sometimes helpful. Sometimes confidently wrong.
You’re forced to decide what’s useful and what’s slop. You’re seeing where outputs look right… but fall apart under examination. You’re learning where adding more context actually matters.
That’s not busy work. That’s reps.
I've made this case many times in this newsletter: We need to get better at AI just as urgently as the AI does.
As more and more integrations arrive, you won’t just use them… you’ll know when they’re wrong, where they break, and what they’re missing.
Second… you're starting to see the shape of the workflow behind the scenes. Not the tool… the thinking.
The sequence of steps. The handoffs. The points where that judgment actually matters… where the human should step in.
That’s the part that survives any platform.
Because integrations don’t create advantage… they distribute it to the market.
So the real question isn’t whether you’ll use them… it’s whether you’ll know how to keep a competitive edge when everybody uses them.
Because if you don’t design this distinctive for you… you’re not using the tool. It's using you. You’re just the final approval step, a human in their loop. Replaceable.
There’s a third benefit most people overlook…
you’re building resilience.
If your workflow lives entirely inside one platform’s version of AI, you inherit its assumptions. Its method. Its strengths and weaknesses.
You don’t just use the tool. You are shaped by it.
You're not a tax expert, you're a TurboTax Expert.
That's all well and good as long as there's a TurboTax.
But when you’ve worked across models, tools, and messy processes… you’re harder to box in. More adaptable. Free to move as platform fees rise.
