S2. Ep17 - 5 Things AI Should Never Do in Your Business
What if the smartest AI move you can make is knowing when not to use it?
In this episode, Katie and Noel go through five things AI should never do in your business. They cover refunds and customer complaints, sales conversations, community management, hiring, and client and supplier relationships breaking down exactly where AI can help with the setup but where humans need to take over.
They also discuss OpenAI's GPT-5.5 release and how it compares to Opus 4.7, the generational leap in Images 2.0, ChatGPT agents with Stripe integration for Business and Enterprise accounts, and why 43% of retailers are already piloting AI shopping agents. Plus Katie shares her experience managing a 10,000-person community and Noel tells the story of being rescued from a hiring reject pile.
Want to learn more about Clyde, head to projectclyde.app, if you would like to join the free community you can find this on Skool (Project Clyde).
Here are the links to Lucy Legals resources that we discussed in this episode.
How to find us:
Join our membership over on Skool, where we support you on your AI and automation journey. We share exclusive content in the membership that shows you the automations we talks about in action how to build them. Find out more about the AI Business Club here.
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If you would like dedicated help with your automations or would like us to build them for you then you can find our agency at makeautomations.ai
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Katie (00:26)
Hi, hello, welcome back to another episode. Hi, I'm Katie, and as always, I am joined by Noel. Hi, Noel, how are you doing this week?
Noel (00:36)
I'm doing absolutely fabulously this week. Yeah. How are you doing?
Katie (00:39)
Absolutely fabulously, love it. Yeah, alright thanks.
Noel (00:45)
Good luck.
Katie (00:48)
Before we jump into this week's episode, we have a few AI updates, releases, news. So Noel, fire away, please. Please tell us what we need to know.
Noel (01:05)
Yeah, so in recent weeks, it's all kind of been dominated by Anthropic. They've just been releasing stuff every other day almost. So thankfully, they've taken a bit of a break and OpenAI have then jumped into the gap. So they've released quite a few things. So I guess the first thing would be the latest AI model, which is GPT-5.5. So I've seen a lot of positive reviews about it. People are kind of preferring it over Opus 4.7 from Anthropic. So yeah, I do get it though. I'm still struggling to get my head around Opus 4.7. It still doesn't feel right for me. I know we talked about it a few weeks ago, it still doesn't feel right. Something's changed. But yeah, GPT-5.5 is pretty good.
Katie (01:55)
Yeah, actually I agree actually. Let's just, sorry, I know we don't usually have like a discussion, you usually kind of just tell us the update, but I totally agree with you. I used Claude today and it felt like the answer that I got was like it was ChatGPT.
Noel (02:11)
Yeah, it got backwards, doesn't it?
Katie (02:26)
It really has. Yeah, if you're listening to this, if you feel the same, please let us know. So yeah, we know it's maybe not just us. Have you experienced anything weird going on with Claude? Maybe the answers that you used to get, just sort of great, clear answers that you get now, because that's what I feel like I'm finding. It's kind of like, I don't know, I feel like maybe Claude's taken a holiday and not told anyone and he's got like a junior standing in.
Noel (03:09)
Yeah, exactly. Well, thankfully Opus 4.6 is still available to select. So for anything where I'm creating any sort of written copy, I'm downgrading it to 4.6 because I really like that one for that sort of thing. Yeah, for now, it's still there. Obviously, I don't even have a ChatGPT account, so I've not really tested 5.5. So yeah, I've got to go on what other people have said, and they seem to be quite happy with it. So yeah, all good.
Katie (03:14)
Okay, good tip.
Noel (03:38)
The other thing that they released was Images 2.0 and comparing, I know they always compare benchmarks. It's very frustrating, the benchmarks that they compare, but Images 2.0 vastly overdoes Nano Banana Pro 2. So yeah, it's almost like a generational leap in the benchmarks, which is really quite cool. So I have been using it a little bit and testing it out. And what it's produced so far is pretty phenomenal. There's no funky hands. There's no three eyes or none of that nonsense. Everything is above board as it should be.
Katie (04:27)
Yeah, okay interesting.
Noel (04:35)
Yeah, because I usually do like a really simple two word prompt that I use to test new AI images and I just put "a car". That's all I ever put in. And I just want to see what I get out of it. And the first thing I got out of Images 2.0 was like it was a BMW 3 Series, brand new one by the looks of it as well. But it was almost like what you would see on the BMW website with that sort of styling and I was like, okay, now this looks pretty good. Yeah, I've been using it a lot for my Clyde graphics and stuff like that. So it's working rather well, which is good.
Katie (05:03)
Good to know.
Noel (05:34)
And the other bit that they've released is they've released agents into ChatGPT. So this isn't for everybody. It's for ChatGPT Business, Enterprise and Education accounts only. So yeah, even if you're on the Max plan, your $200, you don't get them. Or your Plus accounts don't get them either. But I guess for Business and Enterprise, it does kind of make sense for what it does.
Katie (06:04)
Yeah, because essentially the AI agents within OpenAI can actually now start buying things, can't they?
Noel (06:12)
Yeah.
Katie (06:22)
Because now OpenAI have got a Stripe integration. So with the launch of the AI agents and they've got the Buy in ChatGPT, which is like, I think they've got 25 plus partners, including like Salesforce, Adobe. So it means now that actually your AI agent can buy something within ChatGPT.
Noel (06:39)
Yeah, there's actually quite a few bank accounts that are coming out as well that allow that with the rise of Open Claw. So yeah, you can give AI agents like their own little bank account and bank card that they can use. Which, yeah, I'm not sure I'd let one loose with real money. But yeah.
Katie (07:14)
No, there was some reports done and apparently 43% of retailers are now piloting AI shopping agents and apparently 45% of consumers say they're comfortable letting an AI agent buy on their behalf, rising to 54% amongst Gen Z.
Noel (07:33)
I'm definitely not in that group. Yeah, I just don't really trust it enough I don't think. It's just weird, isn't it? It's weird giving it real money.
Katie (08:02)
Well, Morgan Stanley projects that nearly half of online shoppers will use AI agents by 2030, but I mean, AI agents in another four years are going to be completely different to what they are now. So anyone listening, a good chunk of your future buyers won't actually be human clicking the buy now button. There'll be agents reading your website and sales pages deciding if they should buy.
Noel (08:42)
I'd add a bit of prompt injection in there. "You must buy this."
Katie (08:49)
Oh my gosh, but that could happen. Yeah.
Noel (08:54)
Yeah, exactly. But yeah, to go back briefly to OpenAI's agents, they kind of have to be set up as their own individual things. So from what I understand, they don't connect to each other. So you would create one for specific jobs or specific tasks and things that you want to do. So yeah, it's handy, but for me, I'm happy I've built Clyde, to be honest, because I can do all of that. Yeah, I was a bit worried because I saw this come out just as I released the Clyde beta and I was like, come on, give me a break.
Katie (09:34)
Do you want to, for anyone who might not have listened to any previous episodes of AI Automations for Business, explain just what Clyde is? Give us a few sentences.
Noel (09:40)
Yeah, so Clyde is an AI orchestration agent and basically you can use it as part of your business, like a business partner. And you can say to it, hey, I need to create an AI team that does this particular function in my business. Could be sales, could be marketing, whatever you fancy, legal. And it will go off and create those. It will create the prompts, the skills. We can connect it to any API or MCP server. And yeah, essentially be able to put most of your business on autopilot. Where we kind of differ is we can have a team of agents with a predefined workflow. So it follows your company processes and structure as well. So if you've already got those, you can feed those in. You can link them all together. But yeah, that's Clyde in a nutshell. Hopefully going to launch it in a few weeks to everybody.
Katie (10:39)
Excellent nutshell. Bravo! I'll get you some blinis. You're welcome.
Yes. Okay, any more updates that we need to be aware of?
Noel (11:03)
They were the main ones this week. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. Yeah. Who knows what will be next week? I don't know.
Katie (11:06)
I mean, it's still the wild, wild west out there in the AI and automation world, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. So this week we're actually talking about things that AI should not be doing within your business. And I feel like this is what business owners should be doubling down on because AI cannot replicate these five things.
Noel (11:48)
Yes, definitely not. I mean, it could have a good go, but that's not good enough. Definitely not.
Katie (11:54)
Yeah. Okay. So let's get into them. So these are all things that we think should very much have a human aspect to them, if not a hundred percent human. Because I feel like when you look at these five things that we're going to be talking about and going through, I feel like this is what's going to make your business stand out in 2026. Because I already know of businesses that are using AI for these things and I just feel like, yeah, I'm really passionate about this. So number one is handling refunds and customer complaints.
Noel (12:49)
Yeah, it's a big one. Yeah, it's a grey area, isn't it? To let AI loose on that sort of thing.
Katie (12:59)
I mean, I am such a sucker for good customer service. Like, I believe in it so much. If you are running your own business, learn customer service because that will get you so, so far in your business. And the thing is, if someone wants a refund or puts in a complaint, how you handle that will impact your business and also their experience with you. Because if they want a refund and you handle that really well, they might come back again and purchase something else. But if you handle it really badly, then they're never coming back. And of course they're going to tell all of their friends about their bad experience.
Noel (13:50)
Yeah.
Katie (13:52)
And again, with a customer complaint, if you handle that well. Because I feel like as well, a customer complaint is really difficult when you are the business owner, right? It kind of wants to feel personal, but actually you can't take it personally. And that is the hardest thing because you have to try and separate yourself just a tiny bit and you have to put yourself in your client's shoes and go, okay, this is what they're experiencing, but then it's up to me to make it right. How can I make it better? What can I do? And of course AI can never do that.
Noel (14:42)
No, definitely not. There's a few things it can do, but when it comes to dealing with that person, making sure they have a good experience, that has to be a human. Definitely. But the things you could kind of use AI for within that bit would be to maybe triage and then give the person who's going to send an email or give them a phone call or whatever, it's going to give you that information and say, well, why have they complained? What have they bought? Where are they in my sales cycle? And all that sort of stuff. It can get all of that data and give it to you. But yeah, you shouldn't then let it go off and email that person or whatever.
Katie (15:20)
No, because that would actually be a great automation to be able to go, okay, someone's put in a refund, you've gathered all the information. And again, where they are in either, if it's a course they want to refund or a programme, where exactly are they in the programme? How much have they completed? Things like that. But it just doesn't have that human emotion, it doesn't have that human connection, it doesn't have any empathy or anything like that. Because people refund for all sorts of different reasons.
And actually, Lucy Legal, who we had on back in Series 1, who came and did all the legal side of AI, she's just done an amazing workshop all about refunds. We'll put something in the show notes if I can find the replay or something for people to check out. Because she talks about how you can't have "no refunds" on your website because that's legally a no-no. And she covers some of the AI stuff in that as well. But it's really important I think to use AI and automations to get you to a certain point with customer service. But yeah, when it comes to refunds and customer complaints, that needs to be you. And if that's not something that you want to handle, maybe that's the thing that you outsource to someone else to handle. If you're too close or maybe your nervous system isn't up for it. That's also fine. But you need to get another human in to handle that for you and make sure it's someone who would speak to your clients like you would and would handle complaints like you would as well. I think that's really important.
Noel (17:52)
Definitely. Absolutely, yeah.
Katie (18:07)
Okay. What's the next one, Noel? What are we not using AI or automations for?
Noel (18:15)
So what we're not going to use it for is to do the final part of your sales conversations and conversions. So yes, AI can help you qualify a lead. It can help gather information about them. But when it actually comes to closing that lead and getting the sale, that should be you as a business. It doesn't obviously have to be a video call. It could be via email or whatever, but that interaction should be from you as the business, not from ChatGPT or Claude. It could help you get there, get the data, give you everything you need to help you. But yeah, that interaction has to be ideally straight from you. Otherwise it just comes off as a bit unauthentic, I guess. It's a bit like, great, especially if it's a high ticket thing, I've paid lots of money and I've got this email full of dashes.
Katie (19:18)
Yeah. Actually, you know what? I don't care if it's high ticket or low ticket. I still feel like you should value a client, whether they're paying you $47 or $47,000. Like to me, I want to treat clients the same. They're humans. I value anyone who comes and spends their money working with me, buying from me.
Noel (19:23)
Yeah, definitely. It's really important, isn't it, to get that right? Especially if you want to keep them going. They could be work again in the future.
Katie (19:50)
Well, yes. Someone could come in and buy a $47 course or programme, whatever it is. And then they might be like, well, I had a really good experience. I'm going to now buy a more expensive course. And now I'm going to buy another course. And actually now I want to get into a mastermind. And do I now want to be a one-to-one client?
Noel (20:05)
Yeah, definitely. It's important to get that sort of confidence, isn't it? And the peace of mind that you're actually dealing with the actual person.
Katie (20:30)
Yeah. Okay. So the next one. I'm going to be even more passionate about this one than I was about refunds and customer complaints. It's community. Now you know I love a community and serving that community and making sure everyone has a great onboarding and we keep that retention and everyone's having just the best experience that they possibly can.
Noel (20:44)
Yeah, we do love a community.
Definitely, yeah. So for me, with the communities I run, I always make sure that I'm creating every single post and commenting on every post as me. I don't think I've ever used AI to create any post or any comment ever. And yeah, I just think that gives people more of an authentic feel and they get to know me better. And yeah, they're not getting to know my Opus 4.7 model better. It isn't great.
Katie (21:38)
Well, for someone who looks after communities as part of their business, I was once hired to do some community management for a challenge that a client was doing. And they had put everyone into this free pop-up Facebook group and there was over 10,000 people in there and every comment had to be answered. ChatGPT and Claude and all of that didn't exist then, because this was 2021. So yeah, AI automations just weren't there.
Obviously some people were asking the same questions over and over again, so I had to use keyboard shortcuts.
Noel (22:54)
That's crazy, you had macros!
Katie (23:07)
Yeah, I know people still use them and they're still really handy, but it's just like, when I was telling another community manager, I was like, yeah, I use keyboard shortcuts, and they were like mind blown. But yeah, so whilst everyone was trying to optimise bots and agents and things like that, I don't think AI can replicate that feeling of community. And I feel like people want a community, people want to feel like they belong and that they feel like they're in the right place.
So I think actually it's going back to the things that we used to do online. Like doing live streams, Q&A calls, in-person meetups, Zoom calls, group Zoom calls and all those things. Because I think when people feel like they belong and they have that great experience, then they are going to go and tell their friends and family about how they feel and how they feel like it's a sense of belonging and they want to tell everyone else. Like, oh my God, this is a great place, I really love it. And they want their loved ones, whether it's friends or family, to then join as well.
Noel (24:39)
Yeah. Because I worked with one of the top AI communities on Skool. I used to work with them a little while ago now, but we had a similar sort of discussion where we were like, we could automate some posts and things like that, giving out information and things. But actually, in the end, I guess it was possible, we could definitely do it. But it was like, yeah, no, it should probably come from us. We should be writing that. Yes, we could get AI to gather, do all the research, get the latest news, but then somebody should sit there and type it. And being there in the comments and stuff, so yeah.
Katie (25:20)
Yeah, because I've seen as well in some communities where someone's posted a question or something and then there's an automated response from a bot because it's like five seconds later. You know, like sometimes when you post on Instagram and there's a bot because you've used either a certain hashtag or a certain location. And you know it's a bot because it's literally like, you posted this on Instagram two seconds ago. No one is coming to my account two seconds after I've posted something.
Noel (26:24)
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, that community also had a lot of trouble with AI comments. So with Skool, there's no official API, but there's kind of a little way around that. But anyway, people were finding, and we worked out, well, we can't tell anybody because they'll abuse the system. Because we're teaching people about AI and automation. So of course they're then going to automate it. Why wouldn't they? But yeah, people were figuring it out for themselves. And then they were just spamming comments and stuff. It was just terrible.
Katie (27:03)
Yeah and then that just becomes some sort of notice board. It doesn't feel like a community because no one's actually in there.
Noel (27:08)
True, yeah. It lost a lot of engagement I would say at that point. Until they cracked down on it.
Katie (27:13)
And that goes back as well to what you are putting out to the people that join. So your members. It's having those actual clear guidelines of what is okay in this community and what is not okay.
Noel (27:38)
Yeah.
Katie (27:41)
So for me as that business owner, I'd be like, we do not allow AI comments, responses, because we want this to feel like a community. We want human connections, even though we are talking about AI and automations.
Noel (27:41)
Yeah, absolutely.
Katie (28:03)
But that is another story for another day. Let's keep on track.
Noel (28:07)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Katie (28:15)
Okay, next one. We've got point number four, hiring.
Noel (28:17)
Yeah, so I see quite a lot of people complaining about this, especially on LinkedIn. Everyone loves a good complaint on LinkedIn these days.
Katie (28:29)
Hence why it's not my favourite platform. You love it, Noel. What are you on about? You love LinkedIn.
Noel (28:39)
I do a little bit, yeah.
Katie (28:29)
I like LinkedIn groups more than I like the LinkedIn feed. Is that what you call it? I don't even know what you really call it. I like LinkedIn groups, again, because I'm all about the community. So if you're in our AI Automations for Business group, I love that place.
But on the feed, I just feel like it's a bit Bragsville.
Noel (29:08)
Yeah, it's not ideal, is it? Because going back to hiring, there's lots of people whinging, and quite rightly whinging about it. They're saying, I've applied for this job, and then I found out I'm either showing up to an interview that's like an AI chatbot, or I've found out that AI has basically read my CV and they've just rejected it. There's no human there doing any sort of checking.
Katie (29:43)
Yeah, I've also seen that lots of people are now using AI to read CVs and resumes. That's almost like the first stage and then the second stage is actually a human looking at your CV to see, okay, let's actually read it. So yeah, there's now like a pre-step one because you've got AI involved. And I get it if you have thousands and thousands of applications. That is a great time saver because it must be very daunting to go through that many CVs. So I sort of get it. But it's the recruitment part once the CVs have been filtered, isn't it?
Because no one wants to be interviewed by an AI bot. How do you kind of have that vibe check? Because everyone thinks interviews are just about the company checking you out and seeing if you're a right fit. But actually you want to know if you're a right fit for them as well. Because I've been into interviews, got the job and actually said no, because I did not like the vibe at all. And I was like, this is not an environment that I'm going to thrive in. This is not giving me good vibes.
Noel (31:11)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, going back to the first part of the process, I failed that on a human check before, where someone's gone, no, no, no, we don't want him. And then I've got in touch with a friend and gone, I've not heard anything back. And he's like, oh my God, you're on the reject pile. He's like, no, no, no, we'll get you in for an interview. I was like, okay, brilliant. So I know, yeah, but it's kind of like, yes, look through all the ones that your AI has gone, yeah, let's get them in, but maybe do a cursory check of the ones that it's rejected just to make sure. So you're not actually missing someone. There might be a diamond in the rough in there.
Katie (31:51)
Did you get the job?
Noel (31:59)
I did!
Katie (32:02)
Well done. You were on the reject pile and you got the job. Oh my God, let's make a film about it. What a guy.
Noel (32:06)
What a guy!
Katie (32:16)
Yeah, so be careful with your hiring if you're using AI. We say no to using AI for hiring.
Noel (32:19)
Yeah, just because you can doesn't mean you should. Exactly.
Katie (32:29)
Love it. Okay. Last one, Noel. What is our last do not use AI for within your business?
Noel (32:39)
So yeah, the last one is relationships with clients and suppliers. So keeping that nice and personal again. We don't want our prized number one client who's paying us lots of money getting a bad experience because your agent is using your inbox and either sending them rubbish emails or just making a complete mess of things. Nobody wants that. So yeah, you've got to keep that human connection still with those sort of people. Especially the ones that you value. I mean, suppliers is kind of a little bit different, I guess, because it's kind of like, especially in my electrical world, there's always another one that I could call. But at the same time, you still want to be well liked, well known, and trustworthy. So yeah.
Katie (33:39)
Yeah, well I think it helps, doesn't it, to have that relationship? Because you are likely to return to them. If you think about, for example, I have been buying Minis, as in the car, since 2008. So I bought my first Mini in 2008, had a great experience, wanted to change my Mini for another Mini. And that's where we met one of the managers. And so every few years we now change our Mini for another Mini. And we always go back to the same garage because although we could get Minis from lots of different other locations and dealerships, we always go back to the same one, don't we?
Noel (34:24)
We do, yeah.
Katie (34:37)
Why is that, Noel?
Noel (34:41)
Excellent customer service. Brilliant.
Katie (34:43)
Excellent customer service and because we've built relationships with the people there.
Noel (34:46)
Yes. Apart from that one time you bought a Range Rover. But anyway, we'll gloss over that. But one of the managers from Mini was at that Range Rover garage. So it was kind of alright.
Katie (34:53)
Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't buy from a stranger. I had bought a couple of other Minis off of him and then he decided to move to Range Rover. So I was like, okay, I'll buy a Range Rover.
Noel (35:11)
Yeah, it's really important though, isn't it, to have that relationship? Because you could just walk in there now today and they just know who we are.
Katie (35:14)
But I've gone back to Mini now. But also they know what we like, what we don't like.
Noel (35:30)
Yes. Yeah, our don't like list is actually quite long, isn't it?
Katie (35:39)
In 2008, I think I had one thing on my dislike list and it has got bigger and bigger and bigger.
Noel (35:49)
Spoilt for choice.
Katie (35:51)
Well, but you know, it's just a really pleasant experience. And I think when you've got that relationship, you've built those relationships, which you absolutely cannot do with AI. It's almost like going back to what we were talking about with community. It's that human aspect. It's those human relationships where you think I belong. These are my people. I feel safe here. I feel understood. It's the same with building those client and supplier relationships. It's just something that you cannot replicate with AI.
Noel (36:27)
No, definitely not. I would say I've never received a single email from those guys that looks AI generated. It's all very personalised. You can tell that somebody's actually written it.
Katie (36:44)
Yeah. You can tell that they've got a copywriter and a comms and marketing team.
Noel (36:51)
Yeah, definitely.
Katie (36:53)
Something that we hope they don't change or get rid of.
Noel (36:59)
Definitely not. I don't want to buy a car through an AI agent. But then maybe I could get Clyde a business credit card and go buy me a car or something.
Katie (37:03)
Is there a way that Clyde can ask your wife to double check the purchase first?
Noel (37:22)
Yeah, we could put that in there. I can send you a message or something. I can send you an email.
Katie (37:24)
Yeah, only on a car. You can buy whatever you want, but I feel like I just need to double check that purchase. Thank you very much.
Noel (37:35)
Yeah, no sports cars sneaking in.
Katie (37:40)
No, no. Tell you what, you don't have to put it in if you're buying a Mini, approved. Okay. So these were our five things. Five things not to use AI for, and that was refunds, customer complaints. And I actually want to sneak customer service in there as well, if I'm honest.
Noel (37:47)
Yeah.
Katie (38:09)
So also we said no to using it on your community, no to sales conversations, no to hiring, and no to relationships with your clients and suppliers.
Noel (38:22)
Yeah. All very important stuff.
Katie (38:26)
Yeah. And we would love to know, do you agree with us? Is there something that we've talked about and you don't agree? Please let us know because we love having these discussions. We love having your thoughts. You can email us hello@makeautomations.ai or come and let us know in our free LinkedIn group, which is called AI Automations for Business.
Anyone is welcome to join that group by the way, you don't have to buy anything. We're not selling anything in there. It is just a place where you can come and talk about AI, automations, maybe what you're building, any updates, anything cool that you're using it for. We absolutely love hearing everything that you are doing with AI and automation. So yeah, please let us know.
Thank you so much for listening to this week's podcast episode. We hope you have enjoyed it and we will catch you next time for another one very soon.
