Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

AI won’t save a business that forgot the basics

8 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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Cameron Herold says companies are pulling back from all-in AI bets after 30 to 60 days and refocusing on basics: serving customers, protecting margins, developing people. He argues 80% of effort should go to bread-and-butter operations, 20% to exploring technology.

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This might be a little bit unpopular right now, but it's absolutely true. I have seen more companies in the last 30 to 60 days pausing and slowing down their all-in effort around AI, and they're getting back to the basics, focusing on the customer, focusing on gross margin, focusing on growing their people instead of being all distracted with OpenClaw and Claude Code and all these cool things. But they're not necessarily getting results done. So getting back to the basics, sticking to the knitting and really working on the core parts of your business is a trend that I'm absolutely seeing today. That doesn't mean to exclude AI. It doesn't mean to ignore it. It just means to spend 80% of your time at least on the bread and butter parts of your business. And yes, still think about the technology, but don't let it completely distract you.