The Future Is Now: How AI Will Transform Course Creation (and What To Do About It)

Hi, friend. Welcome back to her Empire Builder show. It is so great to have you with me here today as I'm talking about one of my favorite Topics, which is AI. I recorded the first video on how to use ChatGPT in 2022, and I thought it was going so fast back then. I had gone to south by Southwest in Texas and I was all pumped up and going, oh, my gosh. Like, AI is going to change everything. And while it has in the last few years, it hasn't actually anywhere near as rapid as what I thought it would. But I feel like at the moment we are picking up pace with the type of rapid change. And I feel like the future of AI is now and it is very much transforming the course creation industry. I have noticed massive changes in the last six months especially, and so I wanted to do this episode with going, what do you do about it? You know that AI is here to stay. You know, it's going to influence how we do a lot of things. How can you make sure? So what I want is, by the end of this episode is for you to not only feel clearer about where AI is, but you'll also know exactly how to stay ahead of the curve and to protect what makes you irreplaceable. My dog is just walking into the frame if you're watching this video. All right, let's get into it. So let's talk about where we are now. So at the moment with AI, the current landscape is mainly taken over by ChatGPT. A year ago, there were so many different tools that I was talking about with, with AI in using things like Sintra, a whole lot of different software programs that I was talking about. Now ChatGPT can do a lot of them. So we're still using like we still use Cast Magic for our podcast. I'm hoping that in a couple of updates, ChatGPT will take that as well. We use Canva AI to produce a lot of the design artwork that we. A lot of the photos that we use in there. The main thing that I am using at the moment that is nearly ready for our members inside her Empire Builder is Delphi AI. I will link to that in the show notes. That is because I've been working on making a clone of myself because I do think that where it is going is people want instant access to answers so that they can keep that momentum going and get that transformation faster. And so at the moment, I think that there's all of these different technologies that are coming in that are making our lives way easier. And it can be overwhelming. And so we want to dispel some of that. In the last 12 to 24 months, the big thing that I have seen change rapidly is that information is now so much cheaper. It is so much more readily accessible. And you know, 12 months ago it really, people didn't really know the prompts to use to get the information that they were looking for. But people are getting much better and better at that. And so what that has meant is if you're running like I wrote an article about this a couple months ago called the 2K course is dead, and if you're running like the traditional $2,000 Evergreen program with no support, no connection, no community, like just selling that, it's highly likely that you will have already seen a drop off in enrollments with that or, or that it is like, you know, on life support happening right now. So that is because what people are looking for is the guide. They're looking for that transformation. Because information you can get off ChatGPT, you can ask it any question and it will tell you what to do. What the hard part is, is do you trust that that is the right thing for you? And it doesn't know like all of the background information and it can give you very discounted, connected, misaligned instructions. And so what people are employing course creators to do is to give them that aligned program where you can go, all right, you don't have to worry about going off in all of these different tangents and all of these different things, but I'm going to take you from point A to point B, quickest way, easiest way possible, in a manner that you can trust because you've built that trust with your community. And so the reality is AI is not a trend, it's not going anywhere. It is the new baseline that we have. And so we want to adapt to that with curiosity. We, we don't want to, you know, you've got to ask yourself, are you resisting it or are you fearful of it? Because the possibilities of that is, I think that you need to adapt with that curiosity and not that resistance and not that fear, because it's not going anywhere. And so I'm going to help you with how to actually keep your business going and thriving and growing in the face of information now being free. And so what's coming next, I think in the next kind of two to five year outlook now, I will say that I read a lot about AI and I talk to a lot of people about AI and for a lot of it, I think that we're all just making it up. We are taking the best guess that we possibly can at what is going to happen next. And so my best guess that I'm sharing with you is based on obviously 20 years of business experience and paying very close attention to AI and human behavior and how people buy and how people consume and how education is delivered over the last few years. And so what I think is happening in the next couple of years is exciting. I think it's going to be like this new frontier. I think it's really, really cool. I think there will be AI customized learning paths, so courses that will adapt based on your behavior. So when you're going through a course in kind of having the choose your own adventure, like if you're up to this part, then I'm going to give you this next part. So rather than it being one size fits all, really having those adaptations within your learning and the technology is just starting to come out with that now. So replit is one that creates it. Lovable is one that you can do to kind of create your own choose your own adventure app. But if you're listening to this now, I wouldn't actually go head first into creating something on those platforms because I mean, I'm in the situation where I'm like, we want to wait it out for about another six months because all of that software is coming in so thick and fast that you want to kind of wait until the dust settles just a little bit so that you're still ahead of the curve, but you're not creating something that's going to be obsolete in like a month's time and have to recreate again and again because that'll be disruptive for your client base. So it will come in with that. You'll get hyper personalized feedback. So this is where people are wanting instant answers. They're wanting coaching bots, they're wanting simulated mentors. And this is why I'm building Delphi is. It is unreal. It is so cool in going, it has all of my teachings, like literally every masterclass I have ever ran, every keynote speech I have given, every podcast episode that I have recorded, every question and answer from my Facebook group over the last seven years has all been copied in there. So it's smarter than me because I can't remember everything, but it can reference everything that I've taught in going, all right, so this is what you should do based on this and it will ask so you can ask it any question and it will ask you some more clarifying questions. And then give that recommendation based on everything that I have ever said. It is so cool and so instant for people that there are some times that I think so the members that are trialing at the moment, like the questions that they're answering, I think sometimes they wouldn't ask me because one someone doesn't want to like. And this is nothing I would ever make someone feel. But I know that this is what people feel sometimes is they don't want to waste my time, they don't want to bother me with a question that they perceive is like simple or easy. They don't want to seem silly. But for the bot, they'll ask it anything. There's no one judging. And so you can get all of those questions really, really easily. It's designing people's social media marketing plan, designing people's launch plans. It's giving feedback on sales pages like it's awesome. And so I think that that sort of hyper personalized feedback that's still using your thought leadership and your knowledge is definitely going to be something that everyone needs to have in their programs. I think the content will change in terms of shifting from information to transformation. And this is what I was talking about before with the 2k course is dead is it's always been about transformation. I think courses have always been about getting you from point A to point B in the quickest, easiest way possible. That has always been the goal, is delivering on that transformation promise. But the way that I've seen traditionally a lot of people do that is just with pure information. This is the information that you need to know. What I've seen, even before AI started becoming really popular, was people simplifying their courses. I know when I started in courses eight years ago that more equaled better. You would do these courses that had an hour of theory for each lesson and people would sell it based on 100 hours of content. And people were like, whoa, that's so much. And I want the bonus tapes as well of another hundred hours of content. But then people were like, actually more is less valuable. What is more valuable is giving me less so I can get the result quicker and faster. So instead of overwhelming with so much information going, how can I get that transformation really, really fast? I think that that is going to be even more prevalent in going, don't give me any fluff, don't give me anything that I don't need, just give me the result. Like at the moment I'm doing a course that I got from somebody that I follow online, which is creating how to Use this AI program to do your own photo shoots. So photo shoots with AI. I do a photo shoot twice a year. I don't mind doing photo shoots. I quite like, especially destination photo shoots. I love doing a photo shoot in Palm Springs, but super easy it would be to go. You know what I need? Like I'm looking for this photo, that's for the banner of my website. I want to be in the far left hand third of the frame. I want it to have a white background. I want to be wearing a blue shirt. Like all of this sort of stuff. If you need that, when you need that, you can just generate it. Amazing. I'm doing this course to figure out how to do that. The software is unreal, like ones I've used previously. You look a little bit weird, but this, you can barely tell. Barely. I think if my husband was looking at it, he could tell. But for most people, 99% of people, you will not be able to tell. It's really, really cool. But what I have loved about this course is there is zero. It's just like, here's how to use it and it is three minute videos. Click here, click here, do this, hit go there, you're done. I'm like, thank you. That is wonderful. And that is what is working really well is I don't want to mess about with the software. I didn't want to go on a chatgpt and go, what's the first thing that I do? I want someone that I trust to walk me through from start to finish, show me how to do this thing. And so that's what people will still continue to pay for. I also think that expectations are rising. So it used to be so easy to knock people's socks off. You could run a webinar and you could have fast acting bonuses and the different things people are like, that's amazing. Thank you so much. Now that is all just baseline expectations. Learners want faster, they want smoother, they want a better user experience. They want everything to be easy, they want it more intuitive. If people have to mess about a bit, you've lost them. I do think that AI will be replacing content creators, but not course creators who lead with empathy, who lead with originality is going to be so important and focus on that transformation. And so that is where I think you are. Your superpower. So this brings us into our next part with humans will still win. I truly, truly believe that as the world evolves and more technology takes over in the next kind of decade. Because the way we live now, like I know, in a decade's time we will look at that and go, wow, we couldn't even imagine what was happening. Like, we can't even imagine, like when robots come into our homes, when vehicles become more autonomous, when agenic AI starts doing. So many of the admin functions in our business, like the use cases for so much of this, I think we can't even imagine right now what we're going to be using that and what is going to be a high level of adoption and what isn't. So what I do think though is the more that that comes in, the more like humans still want human interaction. We want to be seen, we want to be understood. And so I think that you can't be replicated in terms of your lived experience. And that's what a lot of people are seeking, a guide for the transformation. Is that lived experience also your emotional intelligence and your intuition? There are different things. You know, I know the AI models are working on emotional intellig, but there's a lot of things there that just doesn't like an example is I recently got ChatGPT's help to help me craft a keynote. So I'm doing a new keynote speech and I put in all of my outline ideas and got it to flesh it out a little bit. And I was working with it and just going, it just doesn't hit, it doesn't hit the mark. Like there's something, it's something off about it. And I was trying to add more of my flavor to kind of make it more personal and do that. And I ended up scrapping it completely and just writing it from scratch without touching AI. And what I found was it lacked the heart. Like it didn't the story arc and the way that like we make a really good keynote is so much to do with human connection and experience. And so that emotional intelligence just is not there. It can try and fake it, but it just falls flat. And I think that that is going to be a really hard thing to ever replicate in humans because we're complex beings. It won't replicate real, real time connection, like real time connection. Live events. I've always done live events and I think that they have always been the thing that kind of. It's definitely got a lot to do with the retention. Inside her empire builder. My community stays for a really long time because they know each other, they become friends, that connection is built and that community of rising together is built. But I think that that is getting more and more prevalent. Like if you are just running that course with no community, no connection. I think that's going to be really hard. Unless you're going like super low cost, super high volume, that's going to be really hard to sustain. So having that real kind, real time connection, having that nuance in there, having your personality in there, letting that humor, letting your freak flag fly, letting you be you, that is the thing that's going to cut through and people will still pay more for you and not just your information. It's like say take her empire builder, my membership for example. People are paying 5, 99amonth to be in that. That is because they get me live several times throughout the month to be able to answer questions. It is not just my information, but it is able to tap into my real time experience, my connections, all of different things that I can share. Even once I have my AI bot that has all of my knowledge programmed into it, all of the information, there is no way people will want to pay 5.99amonth if I removed myself completely and was just like, you know what, it's the bot instead of me. There is no way people want to equate that with the same value because the human connection is a very different experience. So your story, your lens, your energy, that is what will make you future proof as AI takes over. So many different things. So how you can stay ahead for this. So I want to give you a few little practical strategies to integrate AI without losing your soul and without your business losing its soul as well. So AI I think is great in all of the back end. Like you look at every part of the backend business that you're running now. It can all be helped by utilizing AI. So think all your emails, all your outlines, creating slides, captions, reporting, finances, legal, like so many things can be helped get to that 80% mark, if not 100% mark by utilizing that AI and will never actually negatively impact the customer experience. You can build out all your custom GPTs. Now there are so many custom GPTs that you can create that are going to be brilliant for your business at running them. That's something that I teach my members all the time, is how to create all of the different custom GPTs that can perform those regular functions inside of your business and you want to do that before everybody else catches onto it so that you can move faster with you. You want to be focusing your time not on admin, not on the back end that AI can do, but your time needs to be focused on that connection, on that community and on coaching. So I know that say four or five years ago, there was a big push behind. If it needs you, it's a bad business. You should be able to step completely away from your business and nothing falls over. It needs to be completely scalable and not focused on you at all. But for a lot of us running personal brand businesses, you are where it's at, your connection and having that human connection there, that is the thing that people are coming to. What I want you to look at there is you want to be able to stay in that coaching realm. So where a lot of people dropped any one on one coaching, dropped any small group coaching so that everything was completely scalable. I think the reintroduction of that is super valuable inside your business. If you can bring in some coaching that is going to help future proof. Okay, so then what I want to say is AI is not your replacement. It is a superpower. If you can really use it well, then it is going to set you so much further than everybody else because it will allow you to move much faster, to keep a lot more consistent, to be sustainable and to have that quality increase. But only if you then take that time that you've created with AI and you focus on the individual. If you look at the people that you're serving and you're going, how can I enrich their experience? How can I make this better for them? How can I connect with them? How can I create like a holistic experience that people are going to want to be part of? That's not just about the information but that it's about the transformation. So we want to use AI to buy back your time. You don't want to resist the future that's coming. You want to get into it, you want to adapt to it, you want to adopt it so that you can go further. You don't need to. The robots are coming and they're going to be our friends. So let's learn how to lead them so that you can be ahead of everybody else and you can grow your business. It's just going to take a different shape to what it's doing now. But it's going to take a shape that's going to be more sustainable and it's actually going to be more human centered and connective and that's something that we all love to be a part of and will be a pleasure to lead.