How to Make Yourself Irreplaceable in a World of AI (for experts)

I officially lost my job to AI this week.

Well, my job as I knew it.

The service I provide to experts - helping them publish books to get more customers, can largely be done by AI now.

For a while I was pretty upset about this.

But then I stumbled across something amazing.

I realized that, not only is there hope for me…

But there is a huge opportunity right here in this moment.

We are literally at the beginning of a revolution just as big as the industrial revolution of the 30’s or the tech revolution of the 90’s.

In this video I’m going to share what I’m doing NOW in order to not just survive, but to actually thrive, to ride the tidal wave of AI that is approaching us fast

If you’re looking for opportunities, you have a massive one staring you in the face.

If you are an entrepreneur, you have to become an AI-forward company fast in order to survive. But it won’t just help you survive. It will help your offers stand out and you’ll get more customers because your competition hasn’t caught on yet.

My name is Brian Ellwood and I’ve been an entrepreneur for over a decade. I built a real estate investment company that flipped over 500 houses and I purchased 3 dozen rental properties.

Then I pivoted to coaching other investors—helping them buy their first rental properties. Over the course of 6 years, I built a successful coaching business, worked with 400 clients, and wrote a couple books. I then pivoted away from real estate and started helping experts & coaches grow their businesses.

A little over a year ago, I refined my offer to helping experts publish books. I’ve published three books now and they’ve attracted the lions share of the 400 high ticket clients I’ve worked with, so I have experience in it and I love it. I really feel like I found my calling when I landed on this offer.

I was plugging away, happy with how things were going, and less than a year later, AI showed up and rocked me to the core. A software with the writing power of a thousand humans just landed on everyone’s lap. What the hell?

And yes, AI had actually been around for quite a while, but 2024 was when it got too powerful to be ignored.

If my clients could write a book in ten minutes with AI, what did they need me for?

Now of course, there’s caveats… you can’t just put a ChatGPT book on Amazon and expect it to do well. 

You’ve got to: 

• choose the right title to get it to stand out
• learn how to tell stories
• structure the book
• create a great offer to sell behind the book
• build the funnel to ascend the readers
• master copywriting throughout all of it, and more.

But AI can do almost all of that to 80% effectiveness, and it’s getting better fast.

So, my days quickly changed. Instead of hammering away at the keyboard all day, I found myself using AI. Creating prompts, training it, and cleaning up what it produced.

Lately, I’ve built a couple of “AI Clones” for my clients—where I train AI on their content & voice—and help them use those clones to both write their books + create a ton of content for social media.

And to be honest, a part of me was kinda pissed off about the whole thing.

I mean, cmon, I have this great offer I love, helping people with books, I’m content with it the way it is, and then all the sudden I’m thrust into a major revolution that changes everything.

I bet this is how people felt in the Industrial Revolution when they were being paid to lift lumber and then one day, bulldozers showed up. 

They probably thought: If those bulldozers can lift 100x what I can, what good am I anymore?

But over time, instead of doing the lifting, they learned to operate the bulldozer.

Productivity went up. Things got better overall.

In the short-term, some people did lose their jobs when machinery showed up. If you were just a ditch digger, they didn’t need as many of you anymore. They could just pay a couple of guys to operate the bulldozers versus having 25 guys in the ditch with shovels.

But here’s the interesting part:

Because of the increase in productivity, more jobs were created overall in the long run (manufacturing, operation, repair, and engineering). Someone had to build and maintain the machines.

The same thing is happening right now. We are going through a revolution, but instead of it being the Industrial Revolution of the early 1900s or the Technology Revolution that began in the ’90s..We are in the early stages of the AI & Robotics Revolution.

And just like every other revolution, we have to stay light on our feet. 

To pivot. 

To learn new skills. 

To stay ahead.

To go from a ditch digger to a mechanical engineer.

Or from a traditional writer to someone who builds and manages “AI Agents” which can write for you (more on this later).

The downside of this, for me, is the loss of the romanticism around what I do.

I pictured myself spending my days typing away on my keyboard over an oat cappuccino, while gazing out the window at the aspen trees from my favorite coffee shop.

Ya know, doing it the old school, analog way.

The irony?

I’m writing this in the exact way described, with the added bonus of watching the beauty of our first snowfall this winter here in Colorado. 

I’m not using AI to write this in any way.

Just because AI is here doesn’t mean I have to abandon what brings me joy: 

Writing and sharing ideas and helping people.

And neither do you. If you find writing enjoyable and therapeutic, by all means keep doing it the same way you always have.

OK, let’s return to the main quest now…

Let’s discuss the massive business opportunity we have in front of us right now: to ride the AI wave, make a lot of money, and make a bigger impact.

My wife is an occupational therapist who helps adults with disabilities. She is considering learning to use AI to help adults with disabilities become more independent.

Picture an AI agent that helps an adult with severe autism or down syndrome: 

• live more independently
• take control over their day
• and even help them navigate social interactions in real-time

That’s not being done yet and there’s massive opportunity for someone to be the first to offer it.

Just about every industry has opportunity in the AI space right now, as people are still waking up to it all.

And, I’m not talking about building an software that competes directly with something like ChatGPT, which is near impossible.

I’m talking about helping people use existing AI in very niche ways by weaving in your unique set of expertise. AI is just an amplifier for your skillset like it is mine. 

I can write books and content a lot faster now with a supercomputer in my lap.

Now if you’ve got a bad taste in your mouth about me using AI to write, I recommend watching my previous video where I break down exactly how you can use AI to write while maintaining your authentic voice and keeping it real. 

In addition, consider this:

I was faced with a difficult choice:

Pivot or die.

Imagine I stuck to my guns and the idea that books had to be written the old school way…

And every other company made the obvious pivot to helping their clients use AI to write books much more easily.

What do you think would happen to my business?

I’d get left in the dust.

We are in a situation where two things are happening:

#1: Learning to use AI is a necessity

If you don’t learn to use AI as an employee or incorporate AI into your business as an entrepreneur, you’ll become obsolete.

#2 - AI is a massive opportunity

You are in the position Steve Jobs was in the 70s at the dawn of the computer era. He was poised to get in early and ride the wave of the tech and computer industry. The opportunity you have really is that big.

So let’s get into the nitty gritty here…I’m going to share what I am doing to survive and thrive, and as you listen to my plans, see if you can think of any options like this but for your product or services.

First, I’ve been using the term “AI Agent” a bit, but I didn’t even know what this meant until recently, when I watched a this mind-blowing video about AI that did a great job illustrating what the next ten years will be like.

In short, “AI Agents” are the next big thing. And it’s these “agents” that everyone is worried about, and rightly so. AI Agents will replace humans in a lot of their current roles over the next five years. Some roles have already been replaced today.

An AI agent is just a piece of software that has been trained to do a task.

Here’s an example:

If you are an online expert, the old (and still current) approach for running an ad campaign looks like this:

• Hire a copywriter to write everything
• Hire a funnel builder to build your funnels
• Hire an ad agency to run your ads
• Hire a customer service representative to deal with support

Fast forward 5+ years, and here’s what the same workflow will look like:

• An AI Agent will write your copy
• Another AI agent will prepare 100 different Facebook Ads
• Another agent will launch the campaign
• A different AI agent will build your funnels and automations
• Yet another AI agent will deal with all support requests (you’re already seeing this one as many companies have switched to chatbots)

To take it a step further, every person will have their own AI Agent that lives in their airpods and their smart glasses and helps them do a ton of stuff in their daily lives. Think of it as a personal assistant that knows everything about you and can communicate with all other agents, to schedule everything from a haircut to beers with friends and so on.

In the business world, every business will have an outward-facing AI agent that handles communication with customers. If I want to book a haircut, my AI Agent will talk to the AI agent at the barber shop. They will get it scheduled and paid for. I only have to say a few words into my airpods. Much easier for me and the barber.

But here’s a key distinction…

The barbershop’s AI Agent that handles customer service will not be the same agent that writes the marketing content. You see, AI Agents will be trained in highly-specialized roles. It won’t be a one-size-fits-all kinda thing like ChatGPT—which can do everything but hasn’t been trained on the best practices.

For example, Russell Brunson is the founder of Clickfunnels and is known as “the guy” when it comes to creating webinars. In fact I got to go to Clickfunnels headquarters and learn how to create webinars from him a number of years back, and his skills blew me away.

Now, I guarantee Russell can write a webinar script 100x better than ChatGPT, because of all the nuance that goes into it. Russell Brunson could create an AI Agent to become a webinar script writer and it would do a much better job because it was trained using Russell’s unique set of expertise and decades of experience.

In the future you will have access to AI agents that come pre-trained on all of these specialized skills. Imagine an AI Agent that could instantly generated amazing YouTube thumbnails (the ones you pay $150 each for today and wait a week for delivery).

So the quality of everything is going to go up, because everyone will have greater access to the best resources.

And, the opportunity is in learning how to train AI to perform highly-specialized tasks and weave this into your business (into your offers as well as your internal processes).

Because of all this, here is what I am doing: Building AI Agents for my clients.

AI Agents—for experts.

These Agents assist my clients in writing their books. Everything from the title, to the outline, to drafting the chapters, etc.

In addition, these agents can do all things marketing, such as:

• Writing emails
• Writing social media posts
• Scripting YouTube videos
• Scripting reels
• Creating webinar presentations

I leave my clients with a real asset they can continue to use. The end result? More authority & more clients. A bigger social media presence. Books published more often. 

The AI Agents I build also:

• Write books like the top nonfiction authors
• Write YouTube scripts like Ali Abdaal
• Write tweets like Matt Gray and Justin Welsh
• Write reel scripts like Brock Johnson
• Write emails like Frank Kern
• Write webinar and VSL scripts like Russell Brunson
• Tell stories like the best hollywood producers
• Help you develop your offers like Alex Hormozi

The AI Agents I build also:

• Incorporate the critical “5 levels of awareness” into the content workflow
• Follow Michael Masterson’s critical One Big Idea discovery that makes content resonate
• Incorporate Gary Vee’s famous “Document Don’t Create” approach
• Follow Alex Hormozi’s 4 to-1 formula (where you only pitch stuff in 1 out of every 4 pieces)
• Follow Brock Johnson’s “shareworthy content” principles by making content that people interact with much more
• Tell stories from the ever-growing story bank I provide it (of my client’s stories)

And about three dozen other content principles.

See what I mean? 

There is so much nuance and specialization that goes into creating books & content & offers. The stuff of the expert business in which I specialize.

I’m already spiraling out of control a little bit, and this is just for helping experts with marketing.

And it must be updated constantly, because the best practices for each of these things change. There is always a new way to script a YouTube video, or a new way to script reels, or a new way to do a webinar, or a new structure for offer creation, and so on.

My job is to keep doing what I love to do, learning how to thrive as an expert, and then train AI on these principles and sell the AI to my clients, so they can just use what I create and not worry about reading every damn Russell Brunson book, and instead get back to the thing they’re actually supposed to be an expert in.

Like if someone coaches women after divorce, they need to focus on getting better at that and sserving their clients, they don’t need to spend 90% of their time being this “online marketer” person. So many experts get pulled in that direction and it does their clients a disservice.

This pivot to my offering allows me to stay at the cutting edge of AI, instead of getting replaced by it. It also sets my clients up to stay at the cutting edge of AI when they use what I create. The quantity and quality of their output will go up, which will be required because their competitors =will be using AI it before too long.

Now here’s a key distinction:

I won’t be building agents to do other things in their business. For example, the AI Agent I build won’t help with customer service. This is not my area of expertise or passion, and it requires a very different skill set than the one I have.

The key takeaway?

Stay within a niche with this whole AI Agent thing. Specialize. That’s the future of AI Agent building. 

We aren’t aiming to create another ChatGPT. We are aiming to train a model (that uses GPT or another big company) to do a very niche, specialized task.

What to Do:

If you’re an employee doing a job that an agent can replace you in, it’s time to learn how to build and manage these agents for your company or risk become obsolete.

If you’re an entrepreneur, look at every part of your business that can be enhanced and assisted by AI, and make it happen ASAP. This includes outward facing components like the offers you sell as well as inward functions of the business too.

Don’t start by thinking about AI. Think about your specialized set of expertise that others can’t replicate. Then learn how to use AI to it’s best capabilities to amplify what you are already great at.

For example, if you are world-class at songwriting, and you want to get more clients to hire you to help them with songwriting…

Develop an AI Agent that assists with songwriting. Train it on your principles that you earned over years. Then sell this to your clients and sell them your coaching on top of it.

By the way, I’m a musician and I tried using AI to help me write songs last night, and it’s honestly pretty damn good, but it really needs the touch of a seasoned musician to make it great.

There ya go, just one of many opportunities sitting on the the table to be grabbed.

The AI revolution is upon us. 

The ones who stand still and watch are the ones who will fall behind. 

What’s your next move?

Brian