How we're using AI to buy back time (and you can too)

Hey, it’s Arik.

One of the biggest shifts we’ve made this year has nothing to do with marketing strategy or campaign performance. It has everything to do with time.

More specifically: how we’re using AI to buy it back.

We’ve always been early testers when it comes to AI, but this past month, we’ve started rolling out something that’s been a game-changer for us internally:

Custom AI agents built on our own SOPs and workflows.

Let me break down exactly what we built, why it matters, and how you can think about AI differently in your business.


How We're Using AI Right Now
This week, we finished building what we're calling our "Master Email Strategy Agent." It’s trained to support our strategists across the entire lifecycle, from audit to execution.

Our strategists simply uploads all the client documents (brand guidelines, previous campaigns, customer data, product catalogs), whatever we have. Then they ask the agent to create a custom email flow and campaign strategy for that specific client.

Within minutes, it spits out:
• Complete email flow sequences
• Individual email campaign briefs
• Targeting and segmentation recommendations
• A/B test ideas with specific variables to test
• Timeline and deployment strategy

Once our strategist reviews and approves the strategy (or makes changes), they can ask the agent to generate the actual copy for each email it just outlined.

And we've trained it to adapt to each brand's specific tonality.

So if we're working with a luxury skincare brand, it writes differently than if we're working with a supplement company. Same strategic framework, completely different voice and approach.

The strategist still QA’s the plan and guides the direction. But instead of 8-10 hours of strategic work and copywriting, it now takes 2-3 hours of review, refinement, and customization. That means more time for high-leverage thinking, brand immersion, and creative iteration.

It’s not fancy for the sake of it, but it’s functional, and it’s freeing up the one resource we all need more of.

Time.


What Most Brands Are Missing
I see e-commerce brands trying to use AI, and they're making four massive mistakes:

Mistake #1: They're using AI as a replacement instead of an amplifier.
They think AI means "fire the copywriter and let ChatGPT write everything." That's not how this works. AI amplifies human expertise, it doesn't replace it. Our strategist still reviews every output, makes strategic decisions, and ensures brand alignment. But now they're operating at 3x speed with better consistency.

Mistake #2: They're not training AI on their specific business.
Generic ChatGPT prompts give you generic results. We spent weeks training our agent on our methodology, our client results, our brand voice frameworks, and our strategic approach.

Mistake #3: They're thinking too small.
They use AI for one-off tasks instead of building systems. "Help me write this email" instead of "Help me build an entire email marketing operation." We're not just using AI for copywriting. We're building AI agents for paid ads management, customer service, content creation, and strategic planning.

Mistake #4: They're not thinking about compound effects.
They see AI as a cost-saving tool instead of a growth multiplier. Yes, we save time. But more importantly, we can now take on more clients, deliver higher quality work, and test more strategies simultaneously.


What We're Building Next
The email agent was just the beginning. Here's what's in our pipeline:

• Paid Ads Agent: We're building an agent that can analyze account performance, identify optimization opportunities, create ad copy variations, all based on our proven frameworks.

• Content Strategy Agent: An agent that can analyze a brand's audience, competitors, and performance data to create content calendars, write briefs, and even generate first drafts.


How This Changes Everything for E-Commerce
If you're running an e-commerce brand, this should fundamentally change how you think about operations.

• Customer Service: Instead of hiring 3-4 customer service reps, you could have one excellent manager overseeing AI agents that handle 80% of inquiries.

• Content Creation: Instead of struggling with social media content, you could have an agent that creates posts, captions, and content calendars based on your brand and audience data.

What This Means for You Right Now
If you're reading this and thinking "this sounds interesting but complicated," you're missing the point. This isn't complicated, it's just different.

Don't try to revolutionize everything at once.

Here’s Some Bite-Sized Action Steps:

• Audit your time this week: Look at your business objectively and track where you or your team spend the most hours on repetitive, template-based work, that's your AI opportunity.

• Start with one process: Pick your biggest operational bottleneck, research AI solutions specifically for that task and build an SOP around it (even if its messy). The clearer your process, the easier it is to replicate with an AI agent or automation.

• Train, don't just prompt: Spend time teaching AI your brand voice, methodology, and standards. Generic inputs will get generic outputs.

• Keep the human touch: Don’t fall into the trap of removing people entirely. The best AI systems still need context, judgment, and direction. Let AI do the busywork. Let humans do the work that matters.

• Bonus: if you don’t know where to start, follow creators who specialize in AI for your niche. A single thread or workflow can unlock hours of time saved.

See you next Thursday,
Arik