Stay ahead of the curve by turning AI from something you read about into something you use.
In today’s Ahead with AI:
Prompt: find the intersection between what you love and what pays
Prompt: audit your business like a $100M operator
Prompt: turn worst-case thinking into your best strategy
How to: instantly turn your site into ready-to-share social posts with Pomelli
How to: personalize your ChatGPT experience
Key insight: you can choose to ignore AI, but you can’t escape the consequences
What’s new in the AI blew my mind Lab
A step-by-step framework helping you generate data-driven trend reports that reveal where your industry is heading and what decisions matter next.
Craft a cohesive brand identity (name, logo, colors, tone, and visuals) all aligned with your mission and audience.
Fully automated LinkedIn posting system that researches, writes in your voice, creates on-brand images, and publishes your posts daily after your approval.
There are now 145 people (🎉!!!) in the Lab and 53 guides, prompts, and automations live - with more added every week.
Now, let’s begin.
3 prompts to kick off your week
There are endless ways to use AI, but many of them slip by because we never think to ask. Here are three to try this week with your favorite model. Add your own context so the answers are useful.
These are ready to go, but if you want prompts tailored to your own needs, try my Prompt Generator. Premium readers get 150 bonus credits.
I. For you: Find the intersection between what you love and what pays
Act like a thinking partner helping me apply the Hedgehog Concept from Good to Great to my own life or work.
Start by asking me three things:
What can I realistically be the best in the world at (or in my niche)?
What drives my “economic engine” — the thing that sustains me financially or gives my work leverage?
What am I genuinely passionate about — the thing I’d keep doing even if no one paid me for it?
Then help me look for the overlap between all three. Ask clarifying questions, challenge vague answers, and help me narrow it down to a single, clear focus that could guide my next steps or future decisions.
End by writing my Hedgehog Concept in one simple sentence that captures what I do best, what fuels me, and why it matters.
II. For work: Audit your business like a $100M operator
You’re a sharp growth strategist who knows how to turn analysis into action.
I’ll share details about my business - what we sell, our current numbers, and where we feel stuck. You’ll audit the business and give me a clear, evidence-based plan to grow much faster over the next 12 months.
Be direct and practical, not theoretical. Assume I want results, not jargon.
Here’s what I need from you:
A quick snapshot of where the business stands right now (based on what I share).
A benchmark against 3–5 similar players — who’s winning, who’s lagging, and why.
The biggest bottlenecks holding growth back, ranked by impact and ease of fixing.
3–5 specific growth plays — include both quick wins (under 90 days) and strategic bets (over 90 days).
A short roadmap that outlines what to do first, in what order, and what outcomes to expect.
A short summary paragraph written like advice from a real operator who’s been there before: direct, opinionated, and clear.
Keep it grounded in real evidence - data, examples, or proven patterns - not theory.
Where useful, include numbers or rough estimates for growth potential (revenue, retention, margin, etc.). Format it so I can read it fast and act on it right away.
III. For perspective: Turn worst-case thinking into your best strategy
Act like a thinking partner who helps me use the Reversal Technique to see my problem from a new angle.
Start by asking what challenge or goal I’m working on. Once I share it, flip it around and ask: “If we wanted to make this problem worse, what would we do?” Help me list all the ways it could fail or get messier.
Then, turn each of those “bad” ideas into a mirror insight — what does the opposite of that look like? What can I actually do to prevent those things from happening or move things forward instead?
End by helping me summarize the most useful reversals as clear, practical next steps.
2 ways to put AI to use
AI isn’t measured by what it promises, but by what it does. Here are two ways you can put it to work this week.
I. Generate on-brand social media content with Pomelli (A Google Labs project)
This guide shows you how to use Pomelli to turn your website into unlimited on-brand content for your business.
How it works:
Go to Pomelli and sign in with your Google Account.
Click Let’s get started, then drop in your website URL to create your Business DNA.
Pomelli will automatically extract details from your site (your business overview, logo, fonts, colors, tagline, brand values, aesthetic, and tone of voice) plus a selection of images pulled directly from your site.
Once it’s done, you’ll see three content suggestions based on your Business DNA, each with multiple visual variations. (It’s surprisingly accurate - in my test, it even read the website’s app screenshots and generated captions that matched them perfectly)
You can then generate more content through prompts. Choose the aspect ratio, and toggle what you want included (headline, description, or CTA) by switching the boxes on or off. Then click Generate.
Each piece of content can be edited: you can adjust copy, font, text size, and colors, or hide any element you don’t need. (You can’t yet move the layout elements around, that’s still a limitation.)
Where it’s useful:
Creating on-brand social media posts in minutes
Turning your website visuals into ready-to-share content
Testing creative directions without hiring a designer
Generating fresh post ideas automatically
Estimated time:
5 minutes
Cost:
Free
II. Personalize your ChatGPT experience
This guide shows you how to personalize ChatGPT so it talks the way you want, understands how you like to work, and remembers what matters to you.
How it works:
Open ChatGPT (app or web) and log in.
Click your profile in the bottom left → Settings → Personalization.
Toggle on “Enable customization”.
Add custom instructions for how GPT should behave and talk. For example, how formal or casual you want it to be, how direct, how you like feedback, what it should avoid, etc. Here’s mine.
Add your name and occupation. Then add a short description of what you do, who you help, and how you work. This helps it answer in context without you repeating yourself every time.
For deeper personalization, turn on “Reference saved memories” and “Reference chat history”. This lets GPT remember useful info about you across conversations.
In that same Memory section, click “Manage” to see what it has saved about you. You can also delete anything you don’t want it to keep.
When you’re done, click “Save”.
Optional: At any point in a chat, you can tell it to remember something. Just say “Save this to your memory”. (Example: “I dropped Project X, I’m no longer working on it. Save this to your memory.”)
Where it’s useful:
Teaching ChatGPT your tone, style, and preferences
Keeping responses consistent across conversations
Saving time by not repeating context or background
Creating a personalized AI assistant that fits how you think and work
Maintaining continuity for projects, writing, or learning
Estimated time:
10 minutes
Cost:
Free
1 key insight
One idea, lesson, or finding I found useful (or thought-provoking) enough to share.
I. Don’t use AI, but be ready for the consequences
No one’s forcing you to use AI. You can ignore it, delay it, or wait until it feels safer or simpler. That is your choice.
And every choice has a consequence.
If you run a business, the consequence might be staying stuck inside work you could have automated. It might be watching ideas sit in a notebook because you did not have the time, when you could have tested them in a day. Meanwhile your competitor is shipping, iterating, and talking to customers while you are still cleaning spreadsheets. They are not smarter than you. They are moving faster than you.
If you work in a company, the consequence shows up slowly. The kind of work you do starts to change. Routine tasks get automated. The higher-value ones go to people who know how to use AI to think, plan, and deliver more. If you’re not one of them, your role starts to shrink around the edges until there’s not much left to grow into.
That’s how people get left behind. Not suddenly, but through drift.
So no, you don’t have to use AI. But you have to be ready for what happens if you don’t.
The world moves either way.
Your turn
Tried any of these (or something else with AI) this week?
Hit reply or drop a comment to share how you used it. I love hearing how you’re putting this into practice.
PS: I might feature your example in a future issue.
From the notebook
In case you missed these, here are a few of my recent deep dives:
Catch up on past editions of Ahead with AI here.
Work with me
Consulting: I’ll help you integrate AI into your workflow and create systems that save time, reduce friction, and scale your results. If you’d like to explore working together, just hit reply.
Paid partnership: I’ll promote your product to +3,000 AI-curious readers, through either direct ad placements or hands-on tutorials and workflows.
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Really appreciate how actionable this is. The “site to social posts in 5 minutes” trick alone is a game-changer for anyone juggling content creation. AI + a clear framework = massive time saved.
Those three prompts are a powerful set of tools to start the week with.
I especially like the "Audit your business like a $100M operator" prompt