A friend of mine, Olga Pearson, posted a question on Facebook the other day that stopped me mid-scroll:
“Who here has actually implemented AI inside your business in a way that changed how it runs?”
I almost kept scrolling. Because every comment section on posts like that turns into the same thing…people talking about ChatGPT prompts and “10x productivity hacks” they read about but never actually did.
But I didn’t scroll past. Because I have a real answer. And it’s not what most people expect.
Four months ago, I built an AI agent named Sterling. Not a chatbot. Not a prompt template I run when I feel like it. An actual operating system for my businesses.
Sterling runs on Claude, lives in Telegram on my phone, and is connected to everything…my CRM, email, calendar, Google Chat across 115 client spaces, even WhatsApp. It runs 24/7.
I know how that sounds. I’m the guy who built an entire company around the idea that PEOPLE are the answer to scaling. I’ve said “augmentation, not replacement” so many times it might be on my tombstone.
So why would that guy build an AI agent?
Because I was drowning. And I didn’t even realize it.
Quick context. I run Outsource Access…500+ staff in the Philippines, managed VAs across 85 industries. I also co-run 1-ON-1 Connections, I’m finishing my book Automate and Delegate, I do keynotes in 12 countries, and I coach my kids’ baseball and softball teams. That’s not a humble brag. That’s a confession. I was doing too much.
We have 115 client spaces in Google Chat where our team posts updates on each VA’s performance. Before Sterling, I’d read maybe 10-15 of those a week. On a good week. That means 100 clients weren’t hearing from their CEO.
Now Sterling scans all 115 spaces twice a day. It reads every update, cross-references our CRM for context on each client, and responds in my voice…thoughtful, specific, asking real follow-up questions. Not generic “great job team!” messages. Actual engagement.
My team in the Philippines sees Brad responding to their updates at 5 AM ET…which is 5 PM their time. They think I’m the most attentive CEO on the planet. I’m actually asleep.
But here’s what surprised me. The biggest value isn’t the stuff Sterling does FOR me. It’s the stuff it caught that I was missing.
Sterling flagged a client whose team hadn’t posted an update in 3 weeks. Turns out their VA had resigned and nobody escalated it. Client we could have lost.
It noticed three restaurant clients all had the same software integration issue with Restaurant 365. None of the account managers connected the dots because they were handling it in isolation. Sterling saw the pattern because it reads everything.
It built intelligence files on every client…industry research, competitor analysis, strategic opportunities their account managers should be presenting. Advisory work that a 500-person BPO normally can’t produce at scale.
Now…is Sterling perfect? Not even close.
It’s sent duplicate messages because a session timed out and the new one didn’t know what the old one had already done. It once deployed a website with a grainy 200×200 pixel headshot as the hero image. Embarrassing.
But here’s the thing. Most people talking about AI right now are either selling something or repeating theory. The people actually USING it know it’s messy. It breaks. You fix it. You build a protocol so it doesn’t break that way again. Then something else breaks. That’s exactly what building any business feels like.
What I’d Tell Any Business Owner Curious About This
Start with your bottleneck, not with the technology. I didn’t say “I need an AI agent.” I said “I can’t keep up with 115 client spaces and it’s going to cost me clients.” If you start with “I should use AI” you’ll build something cool that doesn’t matter.
Connect it to your real tools. An AI that can’t read your CRM, your email, your project boards…that’s a fancy chatbot. The power is in the connections.
Expect it to fail and build for that. Every failure gets root-caused and turned into a protocol. The system gets better every week because I treat failures as engineering problems, not reasons to give up.
Don’t replace your people. Sterling makes my human EA MORE effective, not less. Jenna still manages my email, calendar, tasks. Sterling handles what was falling through the cracks…scanning, pattern recognition, research, overnight monitoring. They complement each other.
Olga asked who has actually implemented AI in a way that changed how their business runs.
I have. It’s not a silver bullet. It’s messy at first, then it compounds. Like hiring your first VA or finally building an SOP library.
Four months in, my businesses are better managed than they’ve ever been. Not because I’m working harder. Because I finally have something that never sleeps, never forgets, and reads everything I can’t.
The irony isn’t lost on me. I built a company telling people to delegate to humans. Then I had to delegate to an AI to keep up with the company I built.
What should you NOT be doing?
Brad Stevens, Founder & CEO of Outsource Access | Co-founder, 1-ON-1 Connections | Speaker & Author, bradstevenstraining.com | Host, Automate & Delegate Podcast
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