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Eric Siu argues AI replaces predictable, mediocre work, not entire jobs. He walks through how his agency Single Grain uses agentic AI for SEO and product development, and why adapting to new tools matters more than fearing automation.
Eric Siu argues AI replaces predictable, mediocre work, not entire jobs. He walks through how his agency Single Grain uses agentic AI for SEO and product development, and why adapting to new tools matters more than fearing automation.
Here's the reality with AI. AI didn't come for your job. It came for your mediocrity. Most jobs won't disappear, but the people doing average work will. AI automates the stuff you thought was safe, not because it's technical, because it's predictable. I love that tweet.
Yeah, that's very true.
What do you think about it?
No, I agree. And I talked to so many people in marketing, they are almost at every event I go to. A lot of them are corporate events. Then one of the top questions I always get is, "What do you think is going to happen to us X years from now?" When they say us, they're talking about themselves and their colleagues. And my typical answer is, is if you don't adapt and you're struggling to adapt, you have to worry. And usually the people that ask me that question are the ones who aren't adapting.
Yeah, you know it's it's a very simple thing. It's it's oh what what do we do? Work harder. But oh the moment you say that, oh my god, right? Like oh the thought of working harder. I can't do that. You know I actually pissed off a lot of people. I was telling. Noah about this. So I got a message from someone in Finland, right? They were trying to schedule a call for the software. And they're like, you know, I was like, hey, does this time Pacific work? And they're like, oh, I only work 12 to 5 PM Finnish time. And oh, by the way, what is that timezone conversion? And I'm like, one, you're too lazy to convert the timezone. Two, maybe—
Google it.
Yeah, freaking Google. Why are you asking me? And then And then it's like, oh, and maybe they're working part-time, which is great for them. But the moment I'm like, I just read 12 to 5 PM. I'm like, what is this? Right? So I go to, I go to, I go to Threads. I post this to Threads because I knew I'm going to get a crazy reaction on Threads. Right? So I post the screenshot. Obviously I make them anonymous and I post it. I was like, this is why Europe loses. Right? And then, oh my God, that, that Thread post right now has like 200K views on it. But my point is all the people that are responding are people That do not want to work. It's like, sounds like a good life to me and everything, but it's like, okay, great. Well, that's a trade-off. If you're saying you don't want to be replaced, but you kind of have to adapt to this thing. Well, to adapt, you kind of have to work a little harder right now to figure out life. But by the way, if you don't want to adapt, that's okay. But don't complain when the people that adapt, that work harder, they end up getting the results that you wanted.
Yes. It's like the people that always ask me the question in marketing, what's going to happen to us in the future? Most of them aren't adapting. The ones who are adapting, they're putting in the hours, they're testing stuff on the weekends, they're talking to their colleagues about new things. And I've talked to some of these individuals at the same corporate events and they're just like, yeah, that person's lazy. And I was like, so what do you think is going to happen? They're like, I don't know. I don't care. I'm adapting. They're going to need me if they want to adapt. So what do I have to worry about? Why do I even have to think about this?
So they don't ask about like the people that adapt, when they talk to you, they're excited about these things.
Yes.
Yeah. They're excited. Like I send you stupid stuff all the time.
Yeah.
Hey, check out the CIA prompt over here. Check this out over here.
Some of it's great too.
Yeah. Some of it's great. But I just, I'm so excited about this stuff. Right. It's like, it's like playing a video game. Um, I want to close it off on this one.
But going back to you, the attitude you have on testing new things, I wish more people in organizations had that attitude.
I think most of them would probably be doing their own thing.
No, I'm talking about testing new things.
Yeah.
There's a lot of people I know who don't have the risk appetite to be an entrepreneur, but they love technology and they're willing to test.
Yeah. Yeah.
If you're not willing to test, and when I say test, when you, when I'm giving this example of Eric, the CAA example that he's talking about.
Here's the problem with most marketing agencies. They don't understand what is happening with the world of AI. With my agency, Single Grain, we think about agentic workflows. We think about creating agents for the future. When we think About SEO, we think about creating different products such as internal linking products or content consolidation products. And on the other side of things, we think about building products such as Kare. We just think about making marketing easier overall. If you want to stay at the cutting edge of marketing and at the same time leverage the power of AI, go to singlegrain.com and we'll see you on the other side.
He's not only testing stuff related to marketing, but he's testing all things related to AI, including things like development. He's at the gym coding up a game using AI. I think it was Mario or something like that.
It was Mario and Minecraft. Yeah.
Okay? So when you look at what he's doing, he's trying to understand how these platforms, how this technology works so that way he can figure out better ways to use it in his job, his business, and all aspects of life. When people are willing to test and learn, they're going to be more likely to find better ways to use that technology. When someone puts themselves in a box, oh, I'm in marketing, I only need to test AI for specific marketing tasks, Well, if you do that, it's not going to start giving you more creative ideas. The only way to get creative ideas is to test the application or the technology in all different possible ways. And you'll quickly start coming up with out-of-the-box ideas to just make things more efficient for your own industry.
You know, people often will say, oh, how do I get more creative? Well, the way you get more creative is not just by learning. Learning is a prerequisite. You have to learn, but mainly you have to do. That's how you be creative, right?
Yeah.
But anyway, that is it for today, guys. Uh, please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.
