I asked my brother if he wanted me to build an AI system for his sign shop.
“We don’t like AI here.”
Immediate. No hesitation. He didn’t even ask what it did.
He’s run a successful shop for years — sharp guy, great business. And the word “AI” alone was enough to shut the door before I finished the sentence.
It stuck with me. Because he doesn’t actually hate AI. He’s never used it. What he hates is what the word has come to mean: slop, hype, people replaced by something worse, the human taken out of the work.
But if I’d asked a different question — “want every missed customer call followed up automatically, so you stop losing jobs to whoever answers first?” — I think the answer changes.
Same system. Different word.
That’s where we are right now. The tech got good faster than the trust did. For a huge chunk of real, successful businesses, “AI” isn’t a tool — it’s a vibe they want no part of. And no demo, no feature list, no ROI chart gets past that wall, because the objection was never logical. It’s emotional.
So here’s what I think the next stretch actually rewards: not the people with the best AI. The people who make it invisible — who sell the result and never say the word.
Nobody wants AI. Everybody wants the thing it does.
The sooner we stop selling the first one and start selling the second, the sooner the wall comes down.