More business owners are using tools like ChatGPT or Gemini before speaking to agencies, consultants and specialists. In many ways, this is a positive shift. It helps people research faster, understand unfamiliar topics and come into conversations better prepared. Instead of going into a meeting completely cold, they can get a basic grasp of what might be involved, ask more considered questions and avoid relying entirely on the other person in the room to educate them from scratch.
I am a big believer in using AI in this way. In my own work, I use it regularly to speed up research, organise ideas, summarise information and think through different angles. Used properly, it can be a very useful tool. The issue is not that business owners are using AI. The issue is when AI is asked to create a strategy before the business owner has clearly defined the goal.
AI can help you sound more informed, but that does not always mean you are clearer on what you actually want.
There is a big difference between using AI to prepare for a conversation and using AI to replace the thinking that should happen before the conversation. AI can help you understand the options, but it should not decide what you want. That distinction matters because strategy is not just a list of possible tactics. Strategy starts with understanding the goal, the problem, the context and the commercial priority.
AI Is Useful, But It Should Not Decide Your Goals
A business owner might ask ChatGPT or Gemini, “What should we do to improve our digital marketing?” The response may include SEO, PPC, landing pages, email marketing, social media, conversion rate optimisation, content, backlinks, technical fixes and analytics. None of those suggestions are necessarily wrong. In fact, many of them may be perfectly sensible in isolation.
The problem is that a business does not need every possible tactic. It needs the right tactic for the right problem at the right time. One company may need more traffic. Another may need better quality enquiries. Another may have enough traffic, but a website that does not convert. Another may have strong marketing, but a weak sales follow-up process. Without understanding the real problem, it is very easy to end up with a long list of recommendations that sound useful but do not actually move the business forward.
This is where AI can create confusion. It can produce a detailed answer that looks strategic, but the business owner may still not know what they are actually trying to achieve. The goal has to come from the business. AI can support your thinking, but it should not replace your judgement.
The Problem With AI-Generated Strategy Documents
One of the things I have noticed is that some people now send long AI-generated emails or documents before a call. Usually, I think the intention is positive. They want to show they have done their research, they want to come across as prepared and they want to make the conversation more useful.
The challenge is that more information does not always create more clarity. Sometimes it does the opposite. A long AI-generated email can include lots of points that sound relevant, but when you look closer, there is no clear question. There is no clear problem. There is no obvious decision that needs to be made. It can leave the expert trying to work out what they are actually being asked.
Sometimes the problem is not the answer AI gives you. It is that you have not worked out the question you are really asking.
This is not a criticism of business owners using AI. It is simply a reminder that AI can sometimes give people the language of expertise before they have the context behind it. You can copy and paste a detailed explanation about technical SEO, ad account structure, conversion tracking, content strategy or automation workflows, but if you do not understand why those things matter to your business, it can quickly become noise.
Sounding technical and being clear are not the same thing. A long document can feel impressive, but if it does not explain the goal, the current challenge or the decision that needs to be made, it is not a strong brief. It is just information.
AI Should Help You Write a Better Brief, Not a Longer One
The best briefs are not always the longest. In fact, they are usually the clearest. A good brief does not need to include every tactic, tool, platform and technical recommendation. It should explain what the business is trying to achieve, what problem it is trying to solve and what support is needed from the expert.
If you are speaking to a marketing agency, consultant, developer or AI specialist, you do not need to know all the answers before the conversation starts. That is the point of speaking to an expert. What is far more useful is clarity around the basics: what you are trying to achieve, what is currently not working, what you have already tried, what your budget is, what your timeline looks like and what success would mean.
AI should help you write a better brief, not a longer one.
For example, if a business owner says, “We want more qualified leads from our website, but we are not sure whether the issue is traffic, conversion rate, messaging or follow-up,” that is a useful starting point. It gives the expert something to diagnose. It opens up the right conversation.
By contrast, if they say, “ChatGPT says we need schema, backlinks, Core Web Vitals improvements, 20 landing pages, a TikTok strategy and a newsletter,” that may contain some useful ideas, but it does not tell the expert what problem needs solving. The first version creates a conversation. The second version creates a task list without context.
Explain the Goal Before Listing the Tactics
This is probably the biggest shift I would encourage business owners to make. Start with the goal, then let the expert help you choose the tactics. If you start with tactics, you can easily end up solving the wrong problem.
A business might think it needs more traffic, but after looking closer, the real issue might be that the website is attracting the wrong type of visitor. Another business might think it needs a new website, when the bigger issue is weak positioning, poor follow-up or a lack of trust signals. Another might think it needs SEO, when in the short term PPC could be the better route to prove demand and generate leads faster.
Start with the goal, then let the expert help you choose the right tactics.
This is why context matters. AI tools can suggest options. They can tell you what other businesses commonly do. They can help you understand the language. But they do not automatically know your business, your team, your past decisions, your margins, your sales process, your customers or your priorities. That is why a clear goal is more useful than a long list of tactics.
Bad AI-Assisted Brief vs Better AI-Assisted Brief
A poor AI-assisted brief might look something like this:
“ChatGPT says we need 20 new landing pages, a backlink campaign, schema markup, improved Core Web Vitals, a TikTok strategy, email automation and a full-funnel content plan.”
At first glance, that might sound impressive. Some of those recommendations might even be valid. But it does not give the expert enough commercial context to advise properly. It does not explain what the business is trying to achieve, what the main challenge is, what has already been tried or what outcome matters most.
A better brief would be:
“We want to generate more qualified leads from our website over the next six months. We have a budget of £X, our current issue is low enquiry volume, and we would like your view on whether SEO, PPC or website improvements should be the priority.”
That version is much more useful because it explains the goal, gives a timeframe, mentions the budget, describes the problem and asks the expert to help prioritise. That is how AI should be used. Not to tell the expert exactly what to do, but to help the business owner explain what they are trying to solve.
Do not use AI to tell an expert what to do. Use AI to help you explain what you are trying to solve.
Be Honest About What You Do and Do Not Understand
There is nothing wrong with saying, “I have been researching this, but I am not sure what matters most.” In fact, that is often one of the best things a business owner can say. It shows they are engaged, it shows they care and it gives the expert permission to explain, challenge and prioritise.
The best conversations happen when both sides are honest. The business owner understands the commercial goal, the internal challenges and what success would look like. The expert understands the possible routes to get there, the risks, the options and the trade-offs. When those two things come together, the conversation becomes much more valuable.
The best conversations happen when business owners are clear about what they know, what they do not know and where they need expert guidance.
Problems happen when AI is used to create certainty where there is still confusion. You do not need to pretend to understand every technical detail. You do not need to arrive with a finished strategy. You do not need to prove you are on the same level as the specialist. You simply need to be clear about what you are trying to achieve and open to expert guidance on how to get there.
Questions to Ask Before Sending an AI-Assisted Brief
Before using ChatGPT, Gemini or any other AI tool to help write a brief, it is worth pausing and asking yourself a few questions. The first is: what am I actually trying to achieve? Be specific. Do you want more leads, better quality enquiries, more online sales, higher average order value, better retention, less manual admin or more efficient internal processes? The clearer the goal, the more useful the advice will be.
The second question is: what problem am I trying to solve? A goal and a problem are not always the same thing. You might want more leads, but the problem could be poor visibility, weak conversion rates, unclear messaging, slow follow-up or a lack of trust. AI can help you explore possible causes, but you still need to be honest about what you are experiencing.
Before you ask AI to build your strategy, ask yourself: what am I actually trying to achieve?
It is also worth thinking about what you have already tried. If you have previously invested in SEO, PPC, paid social, email marketing, automation or a website redesign, explain what happened. What worked? What failed? What did you learn? Without that context, AI and experts are both working with an incomplete picture.
Finally, be clear about budget, timeline and success. A strategy without budget and timeline is just theory. If you need results in three months, the recommendations may be very different from a 12-month plan. If your budget is limited, prioritisation becomes even more important. Success might mean more leads, but it could also mean better quality leads, lower cost per enquiry, improved sales conversion, more time saved, better reporting or a more efficient team.
Use AI to Support Judgement, Not Replace It
AI is not the problem. In many ways, it is one of the most useful tools business owners now have access to. It can help you learn faster, prepare better, challenge your own thinking and explore options that you may not have considered.
However, it works best when it supports human judgement. It should help you ask better questions, not avoid asking questions altogether. It should help you prepare for expert conversations, not replace those conversations. It should help you understand possible options, not decide your goals for you.
AI is a tool for supporting judgement, not replacing it.
The real value comes when you combine AI with commercial clarity. That means knowing what you want to achieve, understanding the problem you are trying to solve and then using experts to help you choose the right route forward.
Final Thoughts
If you are a business owner using ChatGPT or Gemini before speaking to an expert, keep doing it. Research is good, preparation is good and asking better questions is good. The important thing is not to mistake a long AI-generated document for a clear strategy.
The goal should not be to arrive with the most detailed brief. The goal should be to arrive with the clearest one. Start with what you are trying to achieve, explain the problem you are trying to solve, be honest about what you do and do not understand, then let the expert help you choose the right tactics.
A good brief is not the longest brief. It is the clearest one.
If you are thinking about how AI could support your business, start with the problems you are trying to solve. The tools matter, but the thinking matters more. If you would like to explore how to integrate AI into your business through strategy, automation, marketing workflows, process improvement or team adoption, feel free to get in touch.
