If you believe the internet, everyone’s already using AI to churn out content, automate their marketing, and grow their business while the kettle’s on.
But when you actually talk to local business owners, a very different picture emerges.
Most people I speak to have tried AI once. Maybe twice. They typed something into ChatGPT, got a reply that felt generic, bland, or strangely American, and quietly decided it wasn’t for them. End of experiment.
And now many of them are stuck in an uncomfortable middle ground. They know AI is the way things are going. They know, deep down, that they’re probably missing out. But they also know they don’t want to sound robotic, salesy, or like every other business on the internet. So they avoid it altogether.
It’s not the technology that’s the problem
The problem isn’t AI itself. It’s the way we’re being told to use it.
Most of the advice around AI is designed for scale. Big audiences. Online businesses. Generic “ideal clients” and marketing funnels that don’t really exist in the real, local world. That kind of advice doesn’t translate neatly to businesses where customers are neighbours, reputations matter, and trust has been built face to face over time.
When you ask AI something vague, you get something vague back. When you give it no context, it fills in the gaps with clichés and buzzwords. That’s not a technology failure. It’s a conversation problem.
AI doesn’t know your business. You do.
AI isn’t a mind reader. It doesn’t know why you started, what you care about, or what you absolutely don’t want to sound like. It doesn’t know the difference between a generic marketing phrase and something that would actually sound like you talking to a customer across the counter.
So when people say, “AI just gives generic rubbish,” what they’re often experiencing is this: they were never shown how to bring their own voice, story, and context into the process. The output feels flat because the input was flat.
AI doesn’t know the difference between a generic marketing phrase and something that would actually sound like you talking to a customer across the counter.
The quiet way local businesses get left behind
There’s a growing sense of embarrassment around AI. A feeling that everyone else has figured it out and you somehow missed the memo.
So people stop asking questions. They stop experimenting. They stop even trying, because it feels safer to opt out than to feel behind. It’s not that they don’t care. It’s that the conversation around AI has become intimidating rather than helpful.
That’s a shame, because used properly, AI doesn’t have to replace personality. In the right hands, it can actually help clarify it. Not by writing everything for you, but by helping you shape, refine, and articulate the things you already know about your business but struggle to put into words.
Human businesses still need human context
The irony is that the more personal and human your business is, the more context AI needs to be useful.
AI works best when it’s grounded in real journeys, real decisions, and real reasons why people do what they do. Strip those out, and you get generic nonsense. Put them in, and it becomes a tool rather than a threat.
We need better conversations about AI
What local businesses really need right now isn’t more hype, fear, or pressure to “get on board or be left behind”.
They need reassurance that they’re not stupid. Permission to go at their own pace. And better, more honest conversations about how new tools can support real businesses without erasing what makes them human in the first place.
AI isn’t going anywhere. But neither are local businesses built on relationships, trust, and real people. The future isn’t one or the other. It’s working out how the two can coexist, properly and thoughtfully.
That’s a conversation worth having.
