This year, more people will use ChatGPT and LLMs to damage their reputations than to build them. Let me ask you this: When was the last time you spent time on LinkedIn without wondering, “Is this written by a person, or generated by AI?” Before I show you how to make AI sound better than the rest, let me make the case.

I’ve just searched Reddit for posts about LinkedIn and AI. People are raging: “Half the posts are AI-generated now. So there is just no reason to scroll anymore. I check my messages once a week, and that’s it,” says one user

But even LinkedIn-related posts about fake AI-generated posts are fake. In one such thread, another user comments: “This is an entertaining post even if faked, but if people start doing this, it'll make LinkedIn profiles like car bumper stickers, full of random nonsense, much of it offensive.”

It’s everywhere right now.

Emails sound smooth but empty, polished but generic, confident without stakes. Common signs include sentences that explain rathe...

Have you noticed how AI in 2025 trained us to use speed? More reports. More analysis. More social media posts, etc. But has that also trained us to smell the use of AI right away? Perhaps you have experienced how many people sound confident and have no clue what they are talking about?

Well, the latter was a problem before AI. As John Cleese stated so eloquently eleven years ago: "You see, if you’re very, very stupid, how can you possibly realize that you’re very, very stupid? You’d have to be relatively intelligent to realize how stupid you are…"

So here we are. It’s the New Year. We copy and paste AI content like madmen. Maybe you, too, have once or twice responded to a LinkedIn comment by asking GPT for a response without even reading or understanding it. I see it every day. The em dash is the easiest tell. But there are many others. We suspect AI-generated content even when it's not there. Trust is down the drain. When someone invites us to connect on LinkedIn, we immediately exp...

In 2023 and 2024, boutique consultants could still get paid to explain what a prompt is. In 2025, that window closed.

Executives stopped being impressed by the tool and began to judge the operator. ChatGPT moved from a shiny object to boring infrastructure. The buyers who sign serious checks now assume you can use it. Competence is the floor, not the fee.

Remember web community managers in 2002? These were among the best-paying jobs back then. By the time I organized a Web Managers Roundtable at The World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC, it was already entry-level. It did not die. It got renamed, sliced up, and buried inside other titles. It's the job of volunteers or virtual assistants in free Facebook groups and forums like Slack, Discord, Substack, Circle, or Skool.

ChatGPT-related expertise is facing the same journey into oblivion. Here's why:

1. AI moved from “toy” to the default operating system for knowledge work

Things that matter here:

• ChatGPT hits 700M, then 800M
...

If you sell high-stakes advice, you are standing in a quiet war right now. On one side, you have AI, fast and tireless. It cleans data, drafts reports, and stitches together insights in minutes. On the other side, you have the only thing that earns your premium fee. Your judgment under pressure.

The danger is not that AI will replace you. The danger is that you will let it practice for you until your own knowledge evaporates and judgment goes soft.

A few months ago, it shocked me when it happened to me. I went on a sales call with a prospect who was so grateful for all the support I'd given her on LinkedIn. I couldn't even remember what I posted at all, like, that morning. Let alone how I interacted with her content last week.

That's when I realized I actually knew nothing of her work and background because AI had done most of the work for me commenting on her posts, respond to comments, and even sharing her content.

For one, I felt like a fake. Not a reputation, I'd like to have. ...

Information is dead. Not dying. Dead. AI now writes faster, analyzes cleaner, and finds patterns that used to take consultants days or weeks. The slide deck you once sold as a deliverable for your $25,000 discovery? A prompt can generate it in 25 seconds.

AI doesn’t just speed up what humans did; it changes what counts as work. It writes faster than any copywriter, builds decks in seconds, and analyzes data without fatigue or bias. It makes “knowing” a commodity.

That means your old selling point, knowing more than your client, is gone. Consultants once sold access to information. You gathered insights from interviews, audits, or benchmarks. Then you packaged them as frameworks and slides that looked exclusive. The client paid because they couldn’t see the whole picture without you.

Now, that picture is generated instantly. AI can produce a polished deck, complete with visual patterns, recommendations, and action plans, before your client even books a discovery call.

So what’s left...

A Battle Cry for Original Intelligence

Most companies are not getting the return they expected from AI. A recent report from MIT noted that 95 percent of organizations see no measurable ROI from their generative AI investments.

Here is why. The race for efficiency has left many firms drowning in sameness. Generative AI is a machine for conformity. Generative models predict the next most probable token. GPT doesn’t think. It averages. It predicts the next likely word based on what most people would write, believe, or do. They complete groupthink patterns. They do not create intent. They do not hold a point of view. When teams feed the same models the same prompts, outputs converge. Convergence produces polished sameness. Polished sameness feels safe. It does not win.

True value comes from outsiders who resist groupthink and push beyond the idea space. Einstein rewrote physics from a patent desk, not a committee. Curie refined radium in a shed, not a boardroom. Tesla worked alone whil...

If you are a subscriber to my blog and reading this, you also might be one of these rare personality types they have just discovered.

Does this story resonate with you?

I was on stage in a hotel ballroom. Bright lights. Big crowd. I told a story about a client who tripled revenue from a trailer. People laughed. People were off the chairs. They danced. I wrapped. Applause.

After my talk, I headed straight to the restroom. Not because I needed it. Because I needed the quiet.

That’s the tell. If you are an extrovert on stage and an introvert off, you might be an otrovert.

You can tune into one mind like a Bluetooth signal. But you can’t connect with a crowd like Wifi.

For example, I dislike the standing part of receptions with superficial small talk. I am the guy with a glass of red wine in his hands somewhere on the edge of the crowd. I don’t know how to connect with the collective. But I am known for my Mr. Spock-like ability to mind-melt with individuals. That’s why I love the si...

Last Friday, I was shocked when I logged into ChatGPT. I saw a colorful background with the words: “Introducing GPT-5.”

First Problems with GPT-5

I don’t like software updates. They usually mean the app will change in ways I don’t expect. The bigger shock was that I couldn’t choose a GPT model anymore. OpenAI believes this isn't necessary. They say GPT-5 is “the smartest, fastest, and most useful model yet, with thinking built in.” So, you get the best answer every time.

Spoiler alter. That statement is false as of this writing. For one, you won't know if you are actually using GPT-5. OpenAI has removed the option for you to select an LLM model. So you might think you’re talking to GPT-5, but behind the curtain, it might swap to a different model mid-flow. This is called 'model switching'. It's when the AI system changes the underlying model you’re talking to during a session or between sessions. It does this without telling you. 

GPT-5 doesn’t always pick the “right” model for you...

Everyone’s shouting that AI will either “replace” us or “empower” us. That kind of thinking shows a lack of original thought. The issue isn’t whether AI is coming for boutique consultants, because it is. The real issue is that many boutique consultants see AI as just a tool. They don't view it as a partner in transformation.

Clients have realized that ChatGPT can handle 80% of the work that consultants used to charge $15K for. And when it comes to getting help fast and free, they would rather do it themselves. It's easier and faster to put a prompt into AI than to send you an email.

Microsoft’s recent Work Trend Index showed what most consultants are still denying.

Generative AI is taking on full work tasks across many industries and showing real success. That’s not a prediction. This is happening now. Your clients draft go-to-market plans with a single prompt. They generate SWOT analyses, persona decks, and training outlines in seconds.

Microsoft analyzed 200,000 U.S.-based Copilo...

Why Boutique Consultants Must Ditch the Clock, Embrace the Bot, and Charge for Results Like a Boss.

When AI automation squeezes hourly billing rates and commoditizes expertise, what's left for boutique consultants to earn? With the eroding perception of human value, is there still relevance to the knowledge of human consultants?

I've heard similar questions in 1997, when machine translation was poised to disrupt the industry I was working in, called localization. Spoiler alert: None of that happened. It did disrupt the industry, but it also drove its exponential growth.

Lessons from Machine Translation

At the time, I was the Managing Director of Berlitz in Germany, overseeing their translation services. The business had lost millions of dollars in the five consecutive years preceding my arrival. So, what was I supposed to do? Competing with technology and all?

I did what every sane leader would do: Grab the enemy by the balls. We placed a button on our website called "Berlitz It,"...