AI is going to destroy online course businesses…
Welcome to BE THE EXPERT! In today’s issue:
- Online course businesses are about to be TERMINATED
- Claude AI can control your computer now
- New Notion features!
AI is going to destroy online course businesses…
For an even deeper dive into this topic, I’m going to be delivering a workshop in November called “How to Build an AI-proof Online Business and Brand in 2025”.
How To Make Your Online Business AI-Proof In 2025
To succeed in 2025 with AI on the rise, it is going to take significantly more skill, experience, trust, connection, and ability to deliver results.
In this workshop, we’ll dive deep into each of those, along with when (and when not) to leverage AI instead of being steamrolled by it…
Learn how to:
- Leverage AI to Enhance Your Offerings: Use AI tools to improve your courses, coaching, and memberships.
- Build Deeper Trust and Connection: Lean into your unique skills and experiences to offer something AI can’t replicate.
- Stay Ahead of Competitors: Be among the first to adapt your business model for the AI era.
- Scale Efficiently: Build a “team” of AI agents to automate and delegate work to.
- Future-Proof Your Business: Develop a clear plan to not just survive, but thrive in the coming changes.
Course Businesses: Why they worked, and why they’re endangered
A great online course helps the customer by packaging information in a useful way that helps them achieve a goal.
A great online course helps the creator as it can be a high margin business where once the course and sales funnel are dialed in, the cost to support more students (and generate more revenue) is low.
In the last 10 years, a lot of people predicted the death of course businesses or all businesses in the “information product” category because of YouTube and other places where information, even great information, is free.
You can find excellent, free answers to any question.
Yet, online course businesses still thrived.
Why?
Because people pay for curation, packaging, experience, etc.
Let’s say I want to learn how to design and build sales funnels. I can find all the answers on YouTube, but that would take days of sifting through tons of videos and sources with conflicting information and from sources that may or may not have proven results.
Or I could find a great online course from someone with proven experience who boils the topic down to the essentials and helps me learn in the fastest way possible.
For those of us on the creator side of things, this has been our value proposition to this point: we have expertise, and we’re packaging it up into a course so others can benefit from it.
As course creators, we do four things that provide value to our customers:
- Find information
- Aggregate information
- Synthesize information
- Package information
Over our years in whatever our niche is, we’ve found and aggregated all the relevant information as we’ve learned and developed our skills.
When we decided to start an online business, we synthesized all of that disparate information into a signature system and then packaged it into an online course to help people get to the same place we are.
The result is a win-win for the creator and the customer.
Sounds great for us until the next wave of AI shows up at the party…
Right now, AI has gotten pretty good at finding and aggregating information. Especially those with the capability to BOTH search the web and leverage all the data the given model was trained on.
Right now, AI is pretty poor at synthesizing information and not good at packaging it.
That is what I see changing quickly in 2025 and what spells doom for traditional course businesses unless they quickly evolve.
Humans vs. AI in 2025
Human: “Hey AI, I need to learn how to design and build sales funnels. Can you put together a short online course for me and help me learn how to build the sales funnels I need for my coaching business? I’ll be using GoHighLevel as my platform so please make sure all videos and demonstrations use that. Please create and upload the course to a mobile app so I can watch and listen to it wherever I want. I also want you there in chatbot form so I can ask questions and get help as I go.”
…10 MINUTES LATER…
AI: Sure, your online course to learn about sales funnels is ready and I’m happy to answer any questions you have as you go. I hope you enjoy all of the videos and the step-by-step demonstrations of how to do everything in GoHighLevel.
AI: Also, did you know I can do most of this work for you when you are ready? Once you have decided on the sales funnels you want, I can help you write copy, create graphics, and build the funnel in your platform for you!
ME: Yikes, I might be out of a job (” Don’t you mean extinct?” as they said in Jurassic Park to the paleontologists)
This example is not far-fetched at all.
My sense is there’s an 80% chance this is where we get to in 2025 and a 100% chance by 2026.
Imagine this for your niche, whether you teach business, tech, health, fitness, etc.
Imagine AI creating full-on courses with videos, audio, demonstrations, etc., in minutes.
If all we are doing as creators is finding, aggregating, synthesizing, and packaging information, we will be in trouble.
AI is going to do it faster and better very soon.
Things are looking bleak for online course and info product businesses…
But all is NOT lost…
For inspiration, watch this short clip from the movie Good Will Hunting (and be sure to come back here after!).
For context, if you haven’t seen it, Matt Damon is a super-intelligent kid who thinks he knows it all, and Robin Williams is a psychologist trying to help him with behavioral issues.
Love that scene!
Matt Damon represents AI in this case obviously. AI knows things but hasn’t experienced things.
AI can fake a human-like connection but is not human.
Importantly, there isn’t a single, omnipotent “AI.”
There are hundreds (soon thousands and millions) of different models and capabilities.
Equally important: outside of math, in most other areas, there is NOT one “right” answer to every question.
Even in our simple sales funnel example here, there is not one funnel that works for all cases, one design that works for all users, and one platform that is best for all scenarios.
There will be MANY good to great answers and solutions provided by various AIs, just like there is a ton of free information on YouTube.
The overall quality, I believe, will be significantly higher. When paired with MUCH higher volume, decision-making will be more difficult.
That is where human skill, experience, trust, and connection will return.
What may be more powerful than AI?
An intelligent human PLUS AI.
For more movie references, who’s better:
Kirk, Spock, or both?
Picard, Data, or both?
How to survive and thrive in an AI world
Over the next few issues of this newsletter, we’re going to explore this topic further, and as I mentioned, I’m going to be delivering a workshop in November called “How to Build an AI-proof Online Business and Brand in 2025,” where we’ll go even deeper.
Click here to register.
Here’s some of what we’ll touch on:
SKILL: In a world of nearly infinite, high-quality information we will need to pair up with AI and be toward the forefront in order to not be left behind by those that do.
EXPERIENCE: Accepting that there is NOT one “right” answer to most questions, our experience will become more in demand than our “information” in helping our target audience make similar decisions.
TRUST: With dramatically more good (and fake) information, AI’s of all kinds, etc. trust (embodied by our personal / business brands) becomes critical.
CONNECTION: AI is going to challenge our species. There will be disruption in many areas. Human connection will increase in importance.
The final thing I want to emphasize is urgency.
2025 is really the last opportunity to build and grow a successful online business.
The people who lean hard into pairing up with AI and focusing on Skill, Experience, Trust, and Connection will pull so far ahead so quickly that newcomers will have a very difficult time establishing their businesses.
Now is the time to learn how to do that and to push as hard as possible to get on the front side of that curve.
Take Action
Be sure to sign up for my workshop “How to build an AI-proof business and brand in 2025”, where we’ll dive deep into each of these areas and help you build a plan for 2025!
Sunday Spotlight 💡
Content Spotlight:
In this video, I show the importance of creating and capturing your own unique knowledge 🧠 to stand out in a world where AI-generated content is becoming increasingly prevalent.
Tool Spotlight:
Notion (sign up for free, let me know, and I’ll send you my advanced Notion content planner)
Notion (one of my most favorite tech tools ever) announced new features at their Make with Notion conference this week, aimed at streamlining workflows and reducing reliance on multiple tools. Key highlights include:
- Notion Mail: A customizable email tool designed to enhance workflow management by allowing users to create tailored inbox views for different tasks like recruitment or project updates.
- Forms: Integrated forms that enable users to collect information directly within Notion, eliminating the need for external tools.
- Layouts: Flexible page layouts that allow users to customize their workspace according to their specific needs, enhancing usability for various applications.
- Automations: Improved automation capabilities, including email notifications for database changes and the use of formulas to streamline processes.
- Notion AI: An upgraded AI assistant that can interact with external tools, enhancing productivity through advanced search and content generation capabilities.
- Marketplace: A revamped platform for template sharing, offering creators better tools for monetization and users improved access to ratings and reviews.
News Spotlight:
Claude AI: Introducing computer use – Anthropic
Available today on the API, developers can direct Claude to use computers the way people do—by looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is the first frontier AI model to offer computer use in public beta.
David Ziembicki
David Ziembicki is the founder and CEO of the Expert Business Agency, which helps coaches, course, and membership creators build their online businesses. David has been an industry-leading technology and business consultant for over 25 years having worked at Microsoft, Deloitte, SAIC, and Avanade.