AI + Offshore Will Eat Your Business

I’m going to make an obvious prediction. 

The small business landscape will look very different in a few years - primarily because of offshore & AI. 

While things like no code & the blockchain will undoubtedly help, they won’t be the key driver. 

As someone running a bunch of “brick and mortar” businesses - I think AI + offshore will be much much more powerful. 

When I see the current state of generative AI -  I see incredible potential (and current use cases). This is a favorite tool, as is this.

HOWEVER, unlike all these VC-backed SaaS guys - I know that it still needs a human hand to be actually useful.

AI-written content, videos, and images look or sound…. a little off. 

If you’ve played around with these tools, then you know what I’m talking about. 

In my businesses, I would never use these models “raw”. 

But - with a light dusting of human intervention, the output of the tools becomes incredible. 

So what’s the solution?

OFFSHORE BABY!

As business owners, our mandate is to have “The most jobs done by the lowest skilled people”. 

We need to constantly be driving down the skill ladder! This increases the value to customers, drives profitability and adds competitive advantages.

We can look at history for analogies.

Let’s use car manufacturing as a parallel.

Before the assembly line, high-paid “craftsmen” worked on a car and personally assembled & built every single part. 

It took a 3-year apprenticeship for the craftsman to be able to produce a car.

The craftsman made the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $35 per hour and produced 5 cars per month. 

High-skill labor with low comparative output.

Fast forward to the assembly line + machinery.

Now, it takes just a 2-week apprenticeship to teach someone how to install a windshield. 

This is the only thing they do - over and over.

The workers aren’t “craftsmen” they are technicians - they know how to work alongside high-output machines in a specialized role.

The technicians made the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $6 per hour and, alongside their machines, produced 50 cars per month.

Low-skill labor with high comparative output - when using “machines” and specialization.

This is happening (or will happen) with mountains of white-collar “knowledge work”. 

Right now, to produce 20 content ideas and scripts for short-form video (ie, Youtube Reels or whatever) - you need to hire a “craftsman”. 

They have a highly developed, broad set of skills & are expensive.

They produce content ideas and scripts for 5 scripted videos per month.

In the future ( I mean… not really…the future is right now… I’m already doing this), to produce 20 content ideas and scripts for short-form video - you’ll hire a “technician”.

They know how to work with generative AI, structure intelligent prompts, and edit the outputs for high usability.

They have a relatively simple, specialized set of skills & are inexpensive. 

They produce content ideas & scripts for 50 videos per month. 

Now, despite what the SaaS guys say on their landing pages, these ideas & scripts aren’t ready yet. 

You need to have the output go through a “Senior Technician” or maybe even a “craftsman” for a final edit.

One skilled “quality controller” or “senior technician” can supervise the output of 10 low-skilled technicians. 

They might throw half of the scripts out, edit 3, and approve 2 without any changes. 

NOW you can use that output.

While you still need the “senior technician,” you’ve increased their output by a factor of 10 or more!

I could write about this topic endlessly (and probably will), but this is a good introduction to my feelings.

Hopefully, this has changed the way you think about this and maybe even got your creative juices flowing!

None of these concepts are new - but offshore + generative AI using this model is brand new!

Yours in Extreme Outsourcing,

Jon

Want to work with me on pairing generative AI with offshore? Holler at me.