26/08/2026
I keep seeing these “STOP! THIS POST USES AI!” warnings popping up in the comments, so, unusually for me, I thought I'd respond.
Yes. I use AI.
I'm a small business owner who regularly works 80+ hours a week. I don't have a marketing department, an IT department, a graphic designer, a systems manager, an administrative assistant, a menu development team or a technical support desk hiding somewhere out the back.
Unfortunately, I checked. It's still just us.
AI helps me create marketing material in a fraction of the time it once took — and often to a better standard.
It helps us research dishes, develop menu ideas, calculate recipes and improve kitchen processes.
When a till, computer, network, Wi-Fi access point, security system or piece of technology decides it no longer wants to cooperate, AI can help me diagnose the problem and often fix it in-house rather than immediately calling someone out at considerable expense.
It helps speed up data entry, invoices and purchase records.
It helps me write and improve SOPs, staff documents, training material, procedures and the mountain of paperwork that comes with running a small business.
It helps research problems, explain things I don't understand, analyse options and occasionally point out that the brilliant solution I've been contemplating for three hours is, in fact, not particularly brilliant.
What it doesn't do is open the doors in the morning, cook your schnitzel, pour your b**r, clean the kitchen, serve your table, pay the bills or lock the pub at the end of the night.
People do that.
I'm also quite capable of recognising that AI has legitimate issues around energy use, copyright, employment and how generated content is used. Those are conversations worth having.
But dismissing every use of AI as “slop” makes about as much sense to me as telling a carpenter that using a power saw is cheating because somebody once made a beautiful table with a handsaw.
For a large corporation, AI might be about replacing costs.
For many small businesses, it's about giving one very busy person access to capabilities they simply couldn't otherwise afford.
So yes, sometimes our posts use AI.
They also use computers, spellcheck, accounting software, EFTPOS machines, commercial dishwashers and electric lights.
I'm not giving those up either.
Oh, by the way, this took me 10 minutes to put together using AI. Otherwise, I would have spent the morning stewing over this and not getting anything else done. I now feel better and have my whole morning to do my other duties.
