The Art of Knowing What Not to Automate

Hey there!

There’s a frantic energy running through the AI and online business world right now.

Everywhere I look, people are trying to optimize, automate, or clone themselves into AI avatars (don’t get me started on this one!!). I see many enterpreneurs in the online space undergoing an AI glow-up of some degree (not talking about corporates here, totally different story).

And I get it — there’s money to be made. There is efficiency to be leveraged. There is friction to be removed.

When you can turn a messy process into a workflow, it feels powerful. But somewhere in that rush, we’ve started to lose our discernment.

Because not everything should be automated.
Some (most!) touchpoints need to stay deeply human - that’s the hill I am willing to die on!

I’ve been slowing down to look at every process of my business: daily, weekly, monthly activities and tasks.
And I ask myself:

• What should stay 100% human/my zone of genius/ things I love and enjoy?

• What belongs in Claude or ChatGPT Projects?

• What deserves its own trained GPT?

• What needs to be build with Lovable?

• And what could be handed off to tools like n8n or Make?

This exercise helps me work through some mental clutter.

Here’s the part most people miss (still!):
When you get generic outputs from ChatGPT, the problem isn’t the tool - it’s the input.

If you don’t give it enough context, skill training or desired outcomes, it’s like asking a random stranger on the street to do a highly - specialized job for you.

A custom GPT, on the other hand, is like hiring someone who’s worked beside you for years.

That’s why I’ve started building a small team of personalized AI assistants — each trained for a certain tiny task of my business, it has all the context about the task and best practice for it, what my business is, who my audience is, what do I offer, what I value, and how I like to work.

Two new “employees” in the making

1. YouTube Assistant — The Experiment

I've been slacking on YouTube this month. Been prioritizing other things, and the algorithm is definitely not happy about it. My last few videos are not performing well at all and I totally slacked on certain aspects of the youtube taks.

To be honest, writing YouTube descriptions and optimizing for SEO is my least favorite part of it. So I am creating a GPT that turns my video transcripts into full YouTube packages - including:

• 10 clickable, psychology-backed titles

• SEO-optimized description written in my tone of voice

• 500+ characters of relevant keywords

• 5–10 high-performing hashtags

• + a handful of other related Youtube admin tasks.

This one’s still in testing, I'll report back in a month to tell you if it actually moves the needle. But this will cut down my time from 45 minutes to 2 minutes and free up my time for tasks I actually enjoy.

2. Brand & Audience Strategist - Now Live

This one started while helping a client clarify her target audience for a new offer.
We used AI to dig into who she truly serves, what problems are worth solving, and how to position her work clearly.

It kind of inspired me to build a GPT trained on modern brand strategy and audience research principles dialed in to what actually make sense in 2025.

It’s now part of the AI Solopreneur Club, check it out there you haven’t joined yet!

Every assistant I build starts with analyzing input that comes from my brain and my ideas. That’s what makes the results useful for me.

If you treat AI like a thinking partner, not a total replacement, you’ll create systems that feel like extensions of your business - not shortcuts that can ultimately damage it.

Prompts of the week

Prompt #1 — When you want to give your processes some tlc

I run a [type of business] and spend my days doing [3–5 main activities].

Help me spot the top 3 tasks that:
- Take forever but shouldn’t  
- I do the exact same way every time  
- Drain my energy  

Then ask me what's important for me to keep human in my business, what I love doing and what brings me joy. Then sketch out a specific AI assistant that could handle 80% of tasks I don't need to be doing. 

Prompt #2 — When you’ve been taking yourself too seriously

Note: This one will only work if you’ve been using ChatGPT for a while with Memory enabled. If you haven’t, explain your business context first.

You are my business's inner critic who's had too much coffee and just discovered interpretive dance. 

Express through elaborate metaphors and possibly haikus why my current business model needs a plot twist. Be dramatic. Be specific. Make me laugh while also making me think. 

Then, suggest 3 wildly creative pivots I could make that would still align with my core mission but would make my competition go "wait, they're doing WHAT now?"

The last one, to my surprise not only made me laugh, but had some very unexpectedly REALLY good idea that I will actually play with further.

Let me know if you try them!

Talk next week,

Your solopreneur bestie,

Elena