Personal
How We Use (And Don’t Use) AI At My Company
Listen to this: 15 years ago, I was invited to be an early investor in an app where you press a button and a stranger picks you up in their car. I laughed it off. It was Uber. I have benefited greatly from being an early adopter of blogging and social media, but I don’t always have the business foresight that maybe others do (well, I said no to a lot of NFT startups, thank god). I’ve been extremely interested in AI for years, devouring articles and podcasts, mostly to understand how this is going to affect society writ large (spoiler: we don’t know). I know a lot of the goods and bads. So when my algorithm started feeding me all these women who were “waking up having all the work done overnight”, I thought at first, Wait, how?? And then I was genuinely curious if I could be one of these women. Maybe AI could really benefit my life and company and solve all my problems.
Should I scramble to be an AI early adopter? Should I train my AI agent to be my clone??? Will she be hotter than me?
***UPDATE: I wrote this post last week, just as Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, called for an international pause because their advanced AI was showing signs of “recursive self-improvement” – that is, being able to make better and more powerful versions of itself. While he’s notably one of the good guys in the field (Not a Zuckerberg or Musk type), he’s still racing towards an IPO, so for him to say this, it must internally be TERRIFYING. Also odd/scary that most of the mainstream media barely covered it.
Anyway, unless singularity happened over the weekend, I’ll assume you are all still here reading, so here’s what I wrote…
Of course, I have the typical extreme fears that a handful of men are playing God with society, the economy, the future of humanity, our kids’ brains, and the earth, with no regulation. In the realm of “inventions,” we aren’t sure if this is going to be more like electricity (yay!), ultra-processed foods (boo), or worldwide human decimation (…). But it’s here, and it’s not going to go away because it’s driving too much wealth and power. It’s a speeding runaway train, and as a small business owner and mom in 2026, I have zero ability to stop it, so I’ve been curious if I should get on it, just take the ride and see if/where I can understand it better/benefit from it.
The Bad (For Me): How AI has Affected Our Business
Left: Styled: Secrets for Arranging Rooms, from Tabletops to Bookshelves | Right: The New Design Rules: How to Decorate and Renovate, from Start to Finish: An Interior Design Book
Pre-AI (the blog glory years), when a potential new reader googled “what size rug should go in a living room,” our site would pop up first, thus driving traffic and hopefully converting someone who was “design curious” into a daily blog reader (or just having them read the post long enough for the ads to refresh). Now it’s an AI explanation of my exact tips at the top, and you have to scroll down to find the source. Our Google traffic decreases 20% YOY. Oh, and both my design books were part of the lawsuit by Penguin Random House that claimed OpenAI read and mirrored all the content for ChatGPT. “We” won – $3k. Clash action money baby!!! LOL (haven’t seen a penny). So yes, AI has “mirrored” (stolen) 16 years of what should have been proprietary research, content, opinions, and tips, and all the Google traffic that went along with it. Boo.
I Hit The AI Acceptance Stage
But that’s just how digital media and tech work. Sometimes we benefit from it (like when Pinterest came out), and other times we don’t. So, I’m currently in the “accept and iterate” phase, and so we try to write non-AI-able content that still grabs Google traffic. For educational design posts (like the rug example), we make sure to have them drenched with personal anecdotes, nuanced problem-solving, and expert-driven opinions so that AI features us highly, knowing that it wasn’t an AI-written post. I feel really lucky that we have enough diverse revenue streams and loyal readership to be financially healthy (it was scary for a bit). We navigated it well because my team is rad. The irony is that while digital media tech built this company, the more flawed and human we are is the only way to maintain it as AI continues to take over. Challenge, accepted.
I think we can all agree that AI stealing creative work and jobs, in every industry, is a net negative for society. Using it for productivity? Sure. Using it in place of human creativity? Nope.
The Good – Yes, Of Course, There Is Good!
Clearly, the advances in AI in science, healthcare, medicine, and tech are astounding. Its research capabilities at such incredible speed are off the literal charts. Innovation in all technology is happening so fast (speeding train, no known destination). But these are specific industries. I liked this article a lot. I know that for a lot of people, there are some productivity tools that can save time in their industries. I’m only speaking from my perspective in my creative and female-forward industry. Speaking of which…
The AI Pressure – Giving Icky “Girl Boss Energy??”
Last month, Reese Witherspoon (whom I like), Mel Robbins (whom I don’t), and Sheryl Sandberg (whom I blame for algorithmic addiction) took to social to say, “You (women) cannot be left behind when it comes to using technology that is shaping the way that work is evolving,” The backlash ensued.
My response was “Sure, but how!?” and then “Wait… I need to be good at a new tech, again?!??” This article from NYMag asserted that this is just the “Girl-bossification of AI”. You see, in the mid-2010s, women were told to “lean in” (cue middle finger to Sandberg), rise and grind, be the mom and be the CEO! At the same time! Hustle culture was at an all-time high, but since we are yet to be cloned (LOL – I guess that’s their point??), it didn’t go well, and the Girl Boss era ended in mass burnout. Speaking from experience, the pressure to win on all fronts was too much then and now. The only reason I’m still here is because Brian was the stay-at-home parent, I have a great team, and I chose to scale back instead of grow. But there is no computer program that can prevent burnout with that level of pressure, no matter how many AI apps you shove down my throat.
Besides, Mel was being paid by Microsoft Copilot, and listen, I get it, it was probably at least a 6-figure reel, but it feels problematic (and she seems not to even know how to use it herself). Their overall “public” thesis is that men are using AI more, and if women don’t hurry to catch up, they’ll continue to race by us. And maybe they will. My field is 95% women, so I’ve never felt an existential male threat, but if that’s true, then sure, let’s perk up and lean in. If their point is that AI will empower women and give us back some time, so that we don’t burn out, then sure, I want in on this fantasy.
But what if it’s just another thing we are being told we need in order to stay on top or to make our life “better”, but it actually just takes more of our time, pulls our brain space, and makes things worse? There is zero evidence yet that it’s a net positive for women in its current iteration. They didn’t talk about how they are using it at all or give any concrete information, “just don’t get left behind!” The panic to adopt is giving NFTs and Crypto.
So how does someone like me use AI to benefit me?????? If I don’t want to hand over any of my creative tasks (because I don’t), then can it make me more productive?
Back To The AI Agents Doing Your Work In The Middle Of The Night…
Brit Morin (formerly Brit and Co, now an investor in a lot of AI) does these reels asserting that those who adopt AI now and have AI agents will have a massive advantage in life.
So yeah, we are told to list our pain points, and once trained, our AI agent will solve them. If you are unfamiliar with AI agents, it’s essentially this: you “train” your AI agent on all your devices (by integrating their program on your computer) – they read every email, Slack channel, text message, they crawl your calendar, listen to every phone call, or if you wear a “wearable”, they’ll record every in-person conversation. As it learns how you talk, act, work, what you like and don’t like, it will start doing it for you, as you. It becomes a proxy of you. A digital clone. It will collate your ideas from multiple sources and will write all your email responses, create the presentation, book the travel – all before you wake up. No more EAs or human assistants needed.
Outside of the TOTAL CREEPINESS OF IT ALL, in the name of curiosity, I explored it, and it seems to me that I’m not the right candidate for this right now. Maybe my job isn’t corporate enough, or my business is too small and manageable, or my personality is too much a part of the business. Or maybe I simply like to be the one in control? I’m not saying it won’t work for others in larger or more tech and data-driven companies, or people with such huge jobs that they don’t have time to read their emails, but in its current iteration, I don’t think it makes sense. I might still try it (for research), but it would mostly be to get rid of all my relentless spam emails. I mean, that’s worth the price of robots taking over my life if you ask me! Also, they make A LOT of mistakes, which means you look like YOU make a lot of mistakes.
But there are a lot of people drinking the Kool-Aid, wearing these wearables, in a race to early adoption. Read this article by Ezra Klein about the paranoia and AI panic that abounds in Silicon Valley. People genuinely believe they will get left behind. And hell, if you work in AI or tech, you probably will. And maybe I will. Literally, one knows how this is going to play out. But normal people should feel ok taking a beat – this article explains all the mistakes these “agents” can make on your behalf.
To be clear, I think all college students should 100% learn about AI, just not learn FROM IT. They should be informed of AI, just not informed by AI. By using it, we are using less of our brains. Just as planned. Less brain exercise means less smart humans. Their plan is working!!
Is this another moral panic as parents, a la Rock and Roll? Or is this our kids’ generation’s “Social media” epidemic? Will Jonathan Haidt write the book about the first generation of AI natives in 20 years? Learning about it is important, but we shouldn’t feel pressure to adopt it fully in its current iteration.
How We Are Using AI????
Right. That was the whole point of the post. The short answer is “Only when it really makes sense”. But these are the specifics.
AI integrations In Some Design Programs
I tried to have chatgpt design a room i’m currently designing like I would. But chatgpt wouldn’t!! Shocked!!!
Of course, there are design programs that can “design a room” in 1 prompt, 10 minutes (i.e furnish my room to look like Nancy Meyers’ kitchen). I’m not discounting how frustrating design can be for people who want a better-looking home and can’t afford a designer or have zero time. So I actually think certain programs could be valuable just to envision, shop, and check the box. I think if you are reading this blog, you are likely not one of those people because you want a more uniquely personal home, but for many people who don’t have time to care and just want “better,” I absolutely see the value here.
We’ve tried using ChatGPT (premium) to switch out things so we can envision what a different sofa would look like in my living room, for instance, and at times it has worked OK. But it takes a long time (sometimes 15 minutes to do one thing), and it often gets it wrong (that’s a long time to wait to just have to do it again). The endless tweaking is too time-consuming and frustrating. So we gave up. What my team has found is that taking away something is easier in ChatGPT, but we still have to add it in Photoshop to get it right (until we discovered Spoak). Nano Banana seems to work better, and this might be something we explore to solve readers’ problems in Design SOS. I haven’t used it yet, but Mal says that it’s fast and just gets it more. You are still prompting and designing, selecting choices, etc. But it renders better and faster. That makes sense to me.
Every sophisticated design software now has built-in AI capabilities that are super useful, visually impactful, and absolutely time-saving while allowing you to be the creative driver. SketchUp, Photoshop, AutoCAD, Spoak – these don’t design for you, they just save the time it would typically take to make your design look even better. We use Spoak to better show us and you our designs in a specific room, using our ideas/prompts. It’s incredible. But it’s only 10% AI; most of what we use is their proprietary software. And re Photoshop: It used to take 5-7 minutes to get rid of something unsightly in Photoshop that we couldn’t remove in real life (think a gross mole hole near where I’m standing in the yard) and now it takes seconds. That’s absolutely time back for Kaitlin or us while editing. (Note: we don’t manipulate photos ever, just remove something that is unnecessarily distracting).
So yes, we are still exploring how we can use AI to better illustrate our design ideas both for personal projects and the blog/social. But we’ll obviously never be interested in handing over the design process to AI – what’s the fun in that? But we are open to ways that make persistent good common sense.
What About Writing And Editing?
Me? Not yet. Blog posts? Nope. Again, I love the process of writing, and I’m fast at it, so I wouldn’t want to hand it off (ironically, this post took me 12 hours). But here’s how we’ve used it in other ways.
- Marlee will plug in an older blog post of mine and ask for bullet-pointed tips that can be developed into a short script for a reel that I’ll then say. We still have to edit it, but since it’s my own words and tips, it’s accurate and saves a lot of her time.
- Quarterly internal presentations – Caitlin (partnerships and revenue lead) and Marlee and Mal (social media leads) are starting to use AI to analyze and collate months of data. They think this has saved them 10-15 hours a quarter, so they don’t have to do it manually. That’s 2 days, and when we are busy, that’s a lot!
- As of now, we don’t use AI to fully edit. We just use Grammarly (which is why some grammar mistakes fall through the cracks). All I can say is that the human editor (the wonderful Jess) can not be replaced. Not only does she help with tone, efficiency, and redundancies, but we have to interlink every post and make sure that all the metadata is in there, etc. So sure, we could also add AI as an additional editor, and I’m sure they’d catch these mistakes, but it’s just not part of our protocol right now. I’m open to it.
- Sometimes we use it for research for posts. We usually Google first, but recently Jess wrote the post about “things other countries have in their kitchens,” and ChatGPT was way more thorough than Google and led her to the sites where she could do more research. So in that sense, ChatGPT brought new traffic to sources that Google couldn’t.
- Collating lists. ChatGPT is better than Google at showing me “20 rooms where Emily Henderson used wallpaper,” for instance.
- Brainstorming. There are times when knowing what works for others is helpful to spark new ideas (full disclosure, I haven’t done this, but people on my team have). Maybe it’s a hook for social that sparks our own idea or title.
AI Seems To Be More Beneficial In Specific Industries, But Not Mine Yet
Admittedly, maybe our industry isn’t going to ever be one that gets totally devastated by AI because of the creative and personal nature of blogging and social media. What my industry needs is more backend tech to link every blog post or to auto-link every product. Hell, if I could go on a walk and dictate a personal post and it was written, cleaned up, formatted, and auto-populated with photos (to then be edited by a human), that would be awesome. I’m open…and wary.
If I were just starting out, building my business, I’d explore it for a lot of accounting, payroll, HR systems, and legal documents (the stuff that creatives are bad at). Before my first hire (which is terrifying), I would see if AI could help. But we are established enough, with good systems in place overseen by humans, so for me to transfer tasks to an AI agent feels like way more work, money, and anxiety just to… maybe save me work, time, and money (??).
As of now, there isn’t a lot of AI alignment in the small creative business (without a big mental cost). If you are a scientist and find writing tedious, I could absolutely see how ChatGPT could help speed up your communication. That’s fine! There is zero judgement from me if it’s working for you. But if you are in a creative industry and have panicked that you feel like you are clearly missing the benefits, getting “left behind,” know that it’s ok to keep researching before adopting. Pay attention, but don’t panic.
But obviously we all use AI, intentionally or not. Every time we Google anything now. It’s great for travel deals and tips on boiling eggs (which is stolen from food bloggers, I know). The other day, I asked ChatGPT to “plan a 5-day itinerary for a couple to go to Iceland in September, willing to splurge on adventure and spas, no helicopters”. And my goodness, it was a solid plan with hotel links and exact routes (I then felt gross that it had crawled so many travel bloggers, so I deep dove into their sites). Honestly, I love researching trips, so I wasn’t that relieved to have it done for me. But I could see how others would, for sure.
I’m not anti-AI. I’m anti the panic and pressure to integrate something so unpredictable and new, fully into my life and business, in its current iteration. I’m not saying no or never. Just being thoughtful about when and how. And just aware that every time I use it, there is a hidden but big impact on creators and the environment.
AI, in 2026, is not there yet.
It’s a whole industry in beta form (and no one wants the first beta form of tech). The glitches are popping, the securities and regulations aren’t there, and there might be more bugs than features. It’s going too fast, and the general population doesn’t have access to any real information, so we are just told how much better it’s going to make our lives, but with no evidence to prove it. Is it creating more work to help us have slightly less work? And I wonder if these apps are capitalizing on working women’s overwhelm, and this whole “don’t get left behind,” and the “AI Gender gap” stuff is just propaganda pressuring us into using a tech that might actually subjugate us and burn us out even more.
I’m glad I was an early adopter of blogging, but I’m taking a beat on full AI integration. I look at it like I do plastics, processed foods, and buying from Amazon. I’m going to try to avoid it where possible, but I know that there is a time and place where it might make sense. Currently, I think it’s a net negative for society.
It’s ok to wait and see. Do research, learn, pay attention, ask everyone in your industry, and keep your head out of the sand. But decide for yourself without the pressure of any “falling behind”.
What I really want is more time, not more tech. I don’t want to download more cooking apps; I want more BBQs with our neighbors. I want more IRL playing with my kids, not another tech and screen to get addicted to, that is actually wrong a lot. I know that this is the promise – time. But at what cost? It’s an international arms race to no one knows where. It’s up to us to figure out if and how it actually benefits us individually before we upend all our systems to integrate it deeply and permanently into our lives.
**Just calling for a ban on AI and shaming anyone who uses it is unproductive – it’s controlling all our markets right now, and unless you aren’t on the internet (and you are), then you are also using it. What I’d genuinely love to hear about is who is using what AI programs that are actually helpful, from real women (not paid AI spokespeople). And not just things they’ve heard of, real personal experiences from you. This is the missing link to the story. Give me real tips from real women, please.
*Photos by Kailtin Green
Fantastic and inspiring writing. Reminds me of that meme that was popular some time ago: I need AI to do my dishes and the laundry so that I have more time for writing, not the other way around.
Great perspective!
Will ponder this after the caffeine hits….but what I’m really thinking about is Where did the beloved Blimp poster go?!?
It’s still in the sunroom, you can see the bottom of it on the wall behind Emily in the photo with the samples.
In her dining room.
This was an interesting, timely read that feels like an authentic, on-going conversation rather than a “winner take all” debate. Couching questions about AI in the day-to-day processes of your specific business (that you know well, and where you already have systems in place) is really helpful. I would love more of this, e.g., similar to regular women recommending swimsuits, have folks you know in other industries give a similar breakdown of how they’ve tried and adopted or rejected AI in various parts of their work/life, and why.
I want to hear about the robots in people’s lives. We still have two older Roombas (model980) that are going strong (two because we hate the noise of the vacuuming and two cuts the time in half). They just vacuum don’t mop. Can’t decide if we should spring for newer options. And do the window cleaning robots work?
My 3 young adult sons are inheriting a world I am glad I didnt have to navigate at their ages. I am glad AI can’t paint a room or forge connections with new clients the way I can. Their dad is a locksmith- AI also can’t come and make a new key fob to replace the one you dropped in the lake. I think there will always be the need for a human to do certain tasks and I am grateful for that.
This was thoughtfully written. Well done.