Published: 7 May 2026 · Last updated: 7 May 2026
AI Augmentation is how modern teams increase output and quality—by embedding AI into their workflows, not around them.
Here’s the version of AI adoption nobody’s selling you.
Not the “replace your VA with a bot” version.
Not the “10x your output overnight” version.
The real version — which is messier, slower, and far more powerful.
Think about what happens when you onboard a great employee.
You give them context.
Reference documents.
Templates, examples, your standards.
You train them up — and then they do the work consistently.
AI is no different.
Most people use it like a search engine and wonder why the results feel forgettable.
Give it your SOPs.
Your brand voice, your call transcripts.
Your existing content.
Suddenly, the work looks like yours.
That’s the shift.
I’ve been testing this inside my own business.
The results aren’t incremental — they’re a completely different category.
This episode walks through exactly how to start.
Not the theory. The actual model.
Including a first step you can action today, without becoming a technical genius.
Have a listen.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: Practical AI Augmentation for Real Workflows
- Stop Chasing Full Replacement of Your Team With AI: For most businesses, particularly small businesses, an AI‑augmented team beats the fantasy of firing everyone and letting AI run the show.
- Train AI Like a New Hire: The more SOPs, examples, and context you give your AI, the more consistent, on‑brand work it can deliver without you.
- Pick ONE Core AI Platform: Go deep on a single tool and master it. Explore and be persistent. Also, understand its strengths, limits, and integrations. Only use other AI tools if your chosen platform fails for certain tasks.
- Make Your Team the AI Owners, Not the Victims: When your team helps design and direct how AI is used, it stops feeling like a threat and becomes a tool that enables them to escape the grind and lean into higher‑value work that quickly moves the needle.
- Start Today, With One Process: Get one of your team members to choose a single role or task, upload everything into a project, and let your team member and AI co‑design a better workflow. Do this with each team member.
BEST MOMENTS: Standout AI Augmentation Shifts and Realisations
02:06 – 💬 “ (With AI) the opportunities of possibilities are massive, but so is that learning curve and that is putting off a lot of people.”
05:44 – 💬 “ I’m now dedicated to learning Claude and mastering it and only using other tools if Claude fails.”
13:08 – 💬 “ The future is not AI or humans. The future is AI augmented by humans.”
13:15 – 💬 “ We get far more done at a far higher level than we could ever think was possible before, without having to blow our budgets on amazing consultants and stuff.”
TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW
00:00 Into: Training AI for consistency
02:20 Use AI to support – not replace
05:19 Exploring different AI tools
09:28 Human AI collaboration
Episode Transcript
Please note: This transcript was generated using automated transcription tools and may contain typographical errors or inaccurately captured words or phrases.
Dr Steve Day: Many people are talking about replacing their entire teams with AI. And if you\'re a small business owner, you\'ll know that your staffing costs are one of the biggest expenses you have. So this can seem like a really attractive way to move forward. However, we\'re using a hybrid model, which is allowing us to adopt quicker, get better results, and keep our costs down. Listen in to find out more.
One of the biggest challenges with any new technology comes out is the learning curve. Either you, as the business owner or somebody in your team has to take it on board. To get up to speed, to learn what is going on. Is this something that you should be applying in your business? And when would be the right time to do it? Which areas should you be applying it to?
And in this case, of course, I\'m talking about AI. Now going all in with something. AI may sound exciting. It may sound like the solution to all your problems. And in some cases it could actually be. AI now compared to even two years ago, is so accessible. It doesn\'t require huge amounts of technical expertise to get huge results. But of course, the more you can go deep onto it, the more technical you can get.
At this point in history, that is still gonna serve you. That doesn\'t mean you shouldn\'t be looking at it. It just means that if you are prepared to go all in, you will get better results in certain areas. That said, and this is the big caveat, that can be a time drain. A massive hole that you jump into and don\'t come out for weeks.
Trust me, that is exactly where I am right now. The opportunities of possibilities are massive. But so is that learning curve that I mentioned before. And that is putting off a lot of people. It\'s making a lot of people not use it in the way that could benefit you far, far quicker than you ever think possible. Without you having to become a technical genius.
Now, with that said, there\'s a right way and a wrong way to use AI. Many people use it like a search engine. And yeah, it is a pretty damn good search engine. But that is the wrong way to use it if you want to get serious advice or serious work done in your business. So by this, I mean, if you want to get the same work done repeatedly by the AI or augmented by the AI, you need to give it more than simply a prompt.
You need to be thinking about how can I standardize the way it is getting the information needs to complete this task. So that every single time I get to do that task, it\'s drawing on that same information. Just like if you were training a human. You would train them up. You\'d give them reference documents. And then you would get them to follow those guidelines and use your reference documents. Whether it\'s the brand guidelines or your culture or your policies. And then they\'ll be able to do the work and get a result that you actually want.
AI is no different. You can ask it to do something and it will try and guess the best way to do it. But the more information you give it. The more context, the more background, the more templates, the more examples, the more guidance in general, the better the results are gonna be. And the more consistent they\'ll be from chat thread to chat thread. You can imagine if you have an employee, you get them, you train them. They do the work really consistently, and then they leave. And a new employee comes in, and you\'ve gotta start all over again.
That person\'s not gonna be able to do it in the same way the first person did, unless they\'ve documented. The first person documented how they did it, provided with templates, provided examples. And then this person was trained up to follow all that stuff. That is exactly the same that the problem with AI.
People expect it to just work out the box. And like with a human, AI needs guidance. Treating it just like a search bar, treating it just like a chat thread, is gonna get you a fraction of the way there, 50% of the way there, if that. However, if you treat it like a new hire, in that analogy I just gave about giving it context, examples, operation manuals, video training, transcripts, whatever you\'ve got available. Treat it exactly the same way you would with a, as an employee.
And that is how they\'re gonna get amazing results. I talked about this actually in a podcast not so long ago. When I talked about actually letting the AI run and doing its work and then giving it feedback just like a human. And this is sort of the same, but we\'re starting at the beginning. Like, yes, we still need the AI to go away to make mistakes and us to give it feedback.
So like literally educate it on why this didn\'t go according to plan. Like what do you expect versus what you got? And then the AI will better to adjust and actually make improvements. Now, how those improvements are made will depend on what AI app you are using. So for example, I\'ve been using ChatGPT for quite a long time. But recently I\'ve moved over to Claude.
Claude, in my opinion is leagues ahead of ChatGPT right at this moment in time of recording this, in April, 2026. That may change overnight. AI is moving so quickly. There\'s nothing to say that the next thing won\'t come out that\'ll absolutely wipe the floor with Claude Code, or Claude, I should say. But right now, Claude to me is just leagues ahead of pretty much everything else.
There are a few different levels of Claude. I wanna just go through those. If you\'re not familiar with Claude. You may have heard some other things like Perplexity, ChatGPT and stuff. Now, I would recommend you go and have a go for different types of activities and try different ones.
But, that said, I\'m now dedicated to learning Claude and mastering it. And only using other tools, if Claude fails. It\'s the same way I approach pretty much any app in my business. I wanna master one app to find out what its abilities are. To find out where its limitations are. And only when I reach those limitations will I go and search for something else.
I don\'t wanna end up with duplicate apps that could do the same thing, and lots of overlap. And trying to, you know, run and pay for multiple subscriptions at the same time. But stuff that ultimately can be done in one place. That\'s why I was stuck with ChatGPT for so long. But when the evidence got so compelling, when so many people that I trusted and respect and look up to. When my coach, my automation coach, started talking about and talking and celebrating how amazing Claude Code was, that prompted me to actually go and have a deeper look.
So, as I said, there\'s a few different ways you can interact with Claude. You can use just like a chat interface, just like when you\'re just basically chatting with any AI. You can use something called projects, which is similar to a project or even a ChatGPT, sorry, GPT in ChatGPT.
Or you can use something called Claude Code, which is the next level down. And you can also interact with these in different ways. So with Claude Code, for example, you can use a desktop app or you can use a command line. If you\'re a bit of a developer, stroke programmer, where you get even more power and control.
What makes Claude, in my opinion though, stand out is not the different ways you interact with it. It\'s the certain things you can do, which I\'m sure all the other AI tools are gonna capture with very soon. But things like adding skills, so you can design basically like a skillset set, like an expertise. Just like you\'re training up or hiring in a top graphic designer, or a top, actually graphic design probably wasn\'t the best example.
Because Claude isn\'t that good at graphic design. It would use a Nana banana to actually create awesome images. But other than that, so copywriting or sales or marketing or business advice, or whatever it is. You can create these skills or it could be very specific to your business. So a specific skill about something that happens in your business.
Like one of my clients built a skill for designing the menus for his restaurants. I mean, that\'s a skill that someone has to be trained at. So he creates a sort of skill in Claude Code to be able to actually then use that across his projects. It\'s not just Claude Code. You can use this in the different types of Claude as well.
But once you\'ve actually designed these skills and you can give them access to your file storage, to your, whatever software apps you are using, it can then go away. And not only do that work, but actually interact with things like your web browser. Interact with your task management tools, create documents, update documents. Do all this automatically without your input once you set up the correct permissions.
And this means that you can basically create almost, or fully autonomous agents. Which are using these skills, which you can either create yourself or download for free of places like GitHub. And you can basically then build an army of agents that are skilled up way, way higher than we could possibly afford for most of our small business owners. The level of competence, I mean. And therefore we can have these amazing agents helping us to do stuff on a daily basis.
However, we still will need humans involved, in my opinion, to be utilizing these things. And this is where the combination, the hybrid model, takes its own. I\'ve seen so many business owners now getting really sucked in and doing it in isolation though. Forgetting that a team exists around them.
So if we can use our team, and actually bring them into this path that we\'re on and get them involved in AI. And understanding how to use this stuff we\'re creating and ideally start actually building out or installing new skills. To actually enhance what they\'re doing. That as I think where we\'re gonna see a massive, right now, increasing your own productivity in your business or your business\'s productivity. Rather than waiting for you to master AI and replace everybody with AI.
Do the opposite. Keep everybody. Or everyone who\'s interested in AI. And get them to be trained up. Keep that human element in there. That ability to actually make judgments, to actually review things. And to actually fill in the gaps where maybe you got something wrong when you explained it to ChatGPT. The humor can be there to just make sure, sense check it before you end up publishing it on social media and embarrassing yourself.
That\'s the kind of thing that humans can do really, really well. Which takes longer and harder to actually sort of hard code that in. Or to make sure you develop that into some of the AI tools or the automations, especially going back in the day.
So humans augmented by AI, in my opinion, is the way that we absolutely elevate our small businesses, without expanding the costs. But also without losing all the humans from our business either. So ideally we don\'t wanna be forced to hire more and more expensive people. We can now augment our trusted, loyal people with some amazing AI agents to do.
You know, such high level work, that was never ever possible before at a far lower rate. Without having to figure that all out yourself as the business owner. So bring your team in, get them geared up with the AI, get them understanding it. Start getting it to them, start building skills like stuff. Replacing themselves in the business so that they are being augmented.
Their work is being done primarily by the AI. And they are just basically sense checking it. They\'re driving the development of it they\'re driving the improvements. The same way that I used to build automations, the same way I\'ve worked with ChatGPT for our social media. It\'s now being basically just 10x. It\'s been upleveled to something that is gonna be absolutely remarkable in the very near future.
So a quick, practical takeaway. This is something you can start doing today and actually make the first steps to becoming an AI augmented business. That is to pick one role or process in your business. And speak to the person who\'s currently doing that.
Ask them to set up a project, if you\'re using Claude or a GPT, if you\'re using ChatGPT. And upload any SOPs, any video transcripts, any templates, any examples, any training content of any description around that particular task. So when it\'s in there, ask Claude or ask the AI to actually analyze and how could this be done better. And which parts of this could you do without my involvement.
And that\'s key. If you\'re using something like Claude, it will start installing skills. Asking you to install connections, asking it to basically skill itself up so it can do more and more of the stuff. And in the process, your virtual assistants or your staff members are getting trained up on how they can start building and using Claude.
And it\'ll send down winding paths of learning and education that may take a lot of time. But ultimately over the first couple of weeks, you should see them actually reducing that time spent in it. And starting producing stuff really, really quickly once they get their head around how to actually set up and use Claude or whatever it\'s you\'re using. If you\'re not already using Claude, I would recommend giving a go. Especially if you\'re new to AI in general.
Claude, I think is just an easier way in. And it\'s got really, really powerful stuff that\'s available sort of out the box, so to speak. But you don\'t have to be put off by that because it\'s got really simple interfaces to get you started. So set up a project in Claude. Upload all the stuff. Get your staff member to do that, and then go from there.
And just be aware that the first iteration is not going to be perfect. This is gonna be a feedback. You\'re gonna get it to do something. You\'re gonna give it some feedback and ask it how to update itself. If you\'re using Claude Code, it can actually even do the updates for you. If using Claude Projects, then you might have to actually copy and paste and update things as you go.
So that\'s it. In my opinion, the future is not AI or humans. The future is AI augmented by humans. So we get far more done at a far higher level than we could ever think was possible before. Without having to blow our budgets on amazing consultants and stuff.
We can get this in-house with our existing teams, at a fraction of the cost. Simply by subscribing and learning how to master some of the amazing AI platforms out there. Currently, I\'m using Claude. It\'s what I\'m recommending. I\'m moving off ChatGPT. That may have changed by the time you listen to it. It\'s currently April of 2026, so please do check out any newer episodes on this topic. To ensure you\'re getting the best advice of the time.
And that\'s it. Hope you found that useful. If you have, please do share this with your friends, colleagues, and loved ones. Anyone you know who runs a business, who will find it interesting to learn how to augment their existing teams with AI. And please do hit subscribe so you don\'t miss out on future episodes.
Thank you very much indeed.
VALUABLE RESOURCES
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ABOUT THE HOST
Steve moved to Sweden in 2015 and transformed how he ran his businesses—switching to a fully remote model. A former NHS doctor, with a background in computing and property investing, he now helps overwhelmed business owners systemise and outsource effectively. Additionally, through his courses and coaching, Steve teaches how to automate operations and work with affordable virtual assistants, freeing up time and increasing profits. He runs his UK-based businesses remotely with support from a team of UK and Filipino VAs. He is also passionate about helping others build scalable, stress-free companies using smart systems and virtual support.
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