Still Human. Still Needed. Still in Charge.

Are you worried that AI is coming for your job? That your salon, your team, your whole business is going to be replaced by a piece of tech? Let's fix that thinking right now, because in this episode, I'm going to show you exactly why your human brilliance is more important than ever, and how we can use AI to amplify your impact, not to delete you. Hello, hello, hello, my salon friends. Phil Jackson here, your queen of salons, coming in your ears again with another dose of Wise Owl Wisdom. How on earth are you? Achingly well, I hope. The last episode of June, the last episode of my little series all about AI, the last episode of Q2. How's it been? Are you rich yet? We're halfway through the year. Are you halfway through your goals? Reach out and let me know. Phil at buildyoursalon.com. I would love to hear from you. I'm going to do a little bit of a brag right now. I am way ahead of halfway through my goals. In fact, I've had to reposition some of those goals, amp up the impact a little bit, because I'm having such a brilliant year. My goodness, 2025. I'll tell you what, darlings, if you haven't turned 50 yet, I highly recommend it. Never been healthier, never looked so good, never had so much fun in my business. Jump in, darlings. The water is lovely. Anyway, what are we talking about today? Stop bragging, Phil. For goodness sake, Uncle Phil, teach us. Show us why AI is not coming for our jobs. Of course, it's not coming for your job. We're actually in one of the most enviable positions in business that we've been in for a very long time. It feels like there's very few people that can say that they are safe from AI, at least in the short term. And I'm telling you now, you're one of them. You lucky duck, you. Over the last few weeks, I've shown you what AI can do. We've talked about drafting captions, helping with your marketing, prepping your stock orders, even writing a decent job description and job ad. But today, I want to talk about what AI can't do, because I know that I know that some of you are feeling a bit uneasy about all this. So let's get it out in the open, shall we? And I'll be honest, there are bits of our industry that I would be a bit concerned. If I'm I'm really, really honest. If my job was anything to do with admin support for the salon industry, I'd be concerned. If my job was to create marketing content for the salon industry, I would be concerned. If my job was front of house, I would be retailing very hard and proving my worth and making sure that my job was safe.

But for the bulk of our industry that carries out hair services, beauty services, aesthetic services, I think we're home and dry, at least in the short and medium term. And I know we've all seen the videos of people having their lashes put on by robots. We're still a long way away. I can remember the hair washing robots that I saw demonstrated at a trade show. Gosh, it must have been 15 plus years ago. I still can't see many people getting their hair washed by robot. So I think we're okay, at least for the short and medium term. So why does that fear exist? Well, I think part of it is honestly contagious. I think there are so many bits of so many industries that are up for grabs right now, where people don't feel needed anymore, that people prefer dealing with AI than they do with human beings that people are getting left behind. I think some of that has seeped into our psyche. I think we are concerned because we're hearing that our friends are concerned in different industries or we've got family members, spouses, partners whose jobs are under threat. So I understand why we might feel that fear. You're not alone. We've been hit with so much technology so quickly that, of course, our little human brains are scrambling to keep up. Of course, your brain is trying to protect you by scanning for potential threats. But here's the truth. AI is not replacing you. What it is doing, though, is repositioning you. Your job isn't vanishing, but your job is changing. So today I want to show you what that new role looks like. You're not being made redundant by AI, but bits of your job need to change and need to adapt because of AI. OK, but don't worry. No one's getting rid of you just yet, my loves, because ultimately there are things that AI can't do. There are things that AI will never be able to do in your salon. And I don't just mean picking up a pair of scissors or putting, you know, carrying out a facial for somebody because one day robots will be able to do those things. We know that. But at the moment, it can't feel a shift in your client's mood the moment they walk through the door. It can't build loyalty and trust and authentic connection. It can't inspire and lead a team through a rough patch or bring up the energy on a hard day and spot the times when we should be running out and buying cake for everybody.

It can't spot that apprentice that's losing confidence and coach them back. It can't sense the gaps in your customer journey and close those gaps with a personal touch. AI is smart, but it's not human. It's got no intuition. It has no gut feeling. It has no heart. It only has what we've taught it in cold, black and white terms. Running a small business is hard enough. You shouldn't need a tech degree just to keep up. AI DIY is your monthly shortcut to earning more, working less and finally feeling in control with the power of AI on your side. Each month, you'll get fresh tutorials on marketing, money and mindset, plus step-by-step prompts and support that makes this feel easy. No jargon, no overwhelm, just smart tools that fit your business and your life. Join AI DIY now at philjackson.coach. Look clever, sound brilliant, work less. Because the real power in your job lies in the things that only you can do. For example, AI can produce content all day long and we've all seen, how many times have we seen, whole profiles built on social media where there is not a human voice in there. Because ultimately, AI can produce the content, but you decide what the brand stands for. You decide what matters in your salon. You decide what your business is about. You decide how you want your clients to feel when they walk in or how your team is treated. You set the values. You steer the vision. Your job is evolving from doing all the things into leading all the things. And that can be scary. I get that as an industry, generally, we've been really resistant to leading. We've been followers. We've let our manufacturers, our suppliers dictate the pace, set the pace for innovation, make the changes, drag us kicking and screaming from one thing to the next. But ultimately, now, in your business, you're the director. You're the film director these days, not the lighting technician. You're the head chef. You're not the person slicing the carrots anymore. So we're going to let AI amplify what we do, not replace us.

Here's my invitation. I want you to use AI to strip away every boring, repeatable, stressful bit of your job. And we started way back on the 3rd of June with a whole list of things that you can stop doing so that you've got more time and energy for the good stuff. I want you to use AI to reduce the decision fatigue, to save you time on admin, to help you scale your business without you even breaking a sweat and certainly not breaking yourself anymore. Because when you give AI those low value tasks, what you have is freedom. You've got the space to step into those high value tasks, the things that no robot is ever going to be able to do for you. And that might feel disappointing. It might feel that I was going to reassure you today that a robot will never be able to carry out those services and never be able to cut hair. Darling, I wrote in my book of innovation, which is over 10 years old, I wrote about exactly how a robot could be cutting hair for us. That all it would take is an advance in vacuum technology to pull hair away from the scalp and then use some kind of laser to cut it to the right length. These things are going to happen. We've already seen the videos of the robots putting lashes on people. We've seen robots tattooing people. We've seen robots carrying out precision surgery, for goodness sake. So you can't tell me we're going to get to the stage where a robot couldn't carry out a facial or remove a blemish or inject somebody with Botox. Of course, these things are coming maybe in a year, five years, 10 years, 20 years. Who knows? But what I'm trying to say is that that's still not the high value stuff in your business anyway. The high value stuff is about how you're making people feel and that can only come from you. So the future of your business doesn't belong to the machines. It belongs to the humans that are brave enough to use those machines to do an amazing job to their advantage, to the advantage of their business, but ultimately, of course, to the benefit of our clients. So if you're ready to stop panicking and start leading, the AI DIY program I've been telling you about for the last three weeks is ready and waiting for you to jump in and start using AI to build workflows, save you time, save you money, ultimately save your sanity, maybe even save your business.

And you know that because it's your Uncle Phil, there'll be no fluff, no jargon, just a pinch of sass and the tools you need. That link again is philjackson.coach and I'm going to put that in the show notes for you as well. Go and take your seat at the top table, my love. You're the human, you're still needed and you are still in charge. So what have I missed? What do you think about AI, technology, innovation in the salon industry? I would love to hear from you as always, phil at buildyoursalon.com. Also reach out if you'd like to be a guest on a future episode of the Build Your Salon podcast. I'd love to be talking to you about how you're using AI in your business. You've heard from me. We've heard from some amazing guests. I'd love to hear from some salon owners on what you're doing to step up and seize the opportunity of this technology. Reach out. I promise you, you don't have to be a huge business with multi-million pound turnover for my audience to find something in your story inspirational. Reach out now. In the meantime, just seven short days until I'm coming in your ears again with another dose of Q3 wisdom. And until then, take care. Sit down and see what's going on with the queen of salons. Hair, beauty and more successful tips for business owners. All on Build Your Salon.