March 13, 2026
AI Breaks The Business Model
Why have I been writing so much about AI lately?
I mean, after all, this is a newsletter about pricing for professional services, right?
Right.
So to answer this, I want to share a story...
The other day, an old friend texted me the following:
Was just at an AI security conference in SF, and most of the audience there was convinced they needed to figure out a new way to be valuable in the next 3-6 months. AI is very good at red teaming, analyzing server images for intrusions, writing incident response reports. Crazy stuff.
The text included a link to a video from the event:
Claude Code + open source digital forensics tools
At the 3m45s mark, the speaker asks the audience:
“How long does it take you to create an incident report?”
The audience members shouted out time frames like:
- “3 days!”
- “2-3 days!”
- “Maybe a week!”
When nobody could volunteer a shorter time, the speaker said:
“What if I said you could do it in 14 minutes?”
At which point, an audience member blurted out:
“That breaks the business model!”
Exactly.
And that’s why I’m writing about AI.
AI breaks the business model.
But it doesn’t have to break the business.
Here’s the thing...
If - like most professional service businesses - your business model is based on trading time for money, AI poses a serious threat.
What can you do about it?
You can change your business model to NOT be based on trading time for money.
And as an added bonus...
Even if AI goes away tomorrow, you’ll still be better off.
Yours,
—J