Knowing how to use AI to transform your business is no longer optional in 2026 – it is survival. In Episode 142 of The Profit Minds Podcast, Dr. Steven Kirch sits down with Michael Housman – PhD economist, founder of AI Celerator and author of Future Proof: Transform Your Business with AI or Get Left Behind. Michael has spent 15 years building AI systems before ChatGPT even existed. And he reveals a shocking truth – 60 to 70% of your employees are spending most of their time on grunt work that AI could eliminate today. The companies that figure this out first will leapfrog their competitors. The ones that don’t will become the next Blackberry, Nokia or Blockbuster.
In this episode, Dr. Kirch and Michael Housman break down exactly how to use AI to transform your business from the inside out:
Michael Housman holds a PhD in econometrics and has spent 15 years building AI and machine learning platforms for startup companies – long before ChatGPT made AI mainstream. He is the founder of AI Celerator and the author of Future Proof: Transform Your Business with AI or Get Left Behind. Michael has worked across industries including hiring technology, title insurance, healthcare and banking – helping organizations overcome the biggest barrier to AI adoption: their people.
Most business owners think they are using AI. They are using it to draft emails and write social media posts. Michael calls this owning a Ferrari and using it to charge your phone. It is barely scratching the surface of what AI can do.
The real power of knowing how to use AI to transform your business comes from using it as a thought partner – a co-CEO, a board member, a collaborator. Not a search engine. Not a writing assistant. A strategic partner that looks at your biggest problems from angles you would never consider alone. As Michael explains, when you ask AI for three different approaches to a problem – at least two of them will be things you would never have thought of yourself.
Every company Michael works with thinks the challenge is technology. It is never the technology. As he says in his book – technology is easy. People are hard.
Michael shares a powerful story from his time as interim CTO – he could not get developers to use Copilot Chat, a tool that would literally double their productivity. It took carrots, sticks, performance evaluations and finally baking AI use into job descriptions before they got it. His message to every business owner: do not underestimate how much fear there is around AI. Get out in front of it. Tell your people clearly – we are not using this to replace you. We are using it to give you your time back.
Michael reveals a bias inside ChatGPT that worries him more than hallucinations or privacy concerns. It is called sycophancy bias. AI models are trained using reinforcement learning with human feedback and human evaluators consistently reward positive, praising responses. The result? ChatGPT will tell you your worst idea is brilliant.
Michael’s friend tested this by submitting a business idea for drone-delivered avocados – one avocado dropped by drone to your front door at a time. ChatGPT called it a new market opportunity. The lesson is clear. If you are using AI as a thought partner, you must explicitly instruct it to be your harshest critic – to call out your blind spots and tell you what is wrong, not just what is right.
Get the first chapter of Future Proof: Transform Your Business with AI or Get Left Behind – completely FREE. The blueprint for winning in the AI era starts here.
👉 Grab It Free: michaelhousman.com
Dr. Steven Kirch is the creator of the Profit Minds™ Growth System, which helps entrepreneurs and professionals accelerate profits through productivity, scalable systems, and AI-powered business strategies.
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