Will AI Replace People? The Honest Answer From Inside Purple Cow.

A few weeks ago, a university student posted in a Halifax jobs thread on Reddit. They were studying marketing and design, and they wanted to know: with AI everywhere, is it still worth it? I replied, and I've been thinking about that question ever since. So here's the longer answer, based on what's actually happening inside our company.

What I told the design student

I was honest with them. A lot of the heavy lifting in design is now done by AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT. We've never had a UI designer on staff at Purple Cow. Every version of our website before this one was designed by me, using Canva, Figma and whatever else I could find, and I was never very good at it. Today, AI does that work far better than I ever did.

But AI is not good at strategy. It isn't good at coming up with a plan, and it isn't good at executing that plan in the real world. That's where I told them to focus their learning.

That advice applies to almost every part of a business right now. The tools do more of the doing. People who can decide what's worth doing, and then make it happen, are needed more than ever.

This isn't new. It's automation on steroids.

Businesses have been automating work for years. Tools like Zapier, and the automated workflows inside Salesforce and Zoho, took tasks that used to need a person and made them run by themselves.

When we started Purple Cow, my business partner Joe was in charge of hiring and I was in charge of automation. It was always a race. Every time a new need came up, it was either "we need to hire someone for this" or "I can automate it," and we'd see who got there first.

What's different now is speed and access. With AI and scheduled tasks, automation happens much faster, and it isn't just one person's job anymore. Almost anyone on our team can build an automation now.

Where AI has already replaced work here

I'm not going to pretend it hasn't. AI has taken over a lot of tasks at Purple Cow.

One example: we used to have someone whose job was to read and rate call transcripts, as many as they could get through. With thousands of conversations a day, that was always a small sample. Now AI reviews every conversation, which powers Cow University, our coaching program for the team. That person wasn't let go. We moved them into a different role, where they're doing better work. And that's happened more than once. AI has let us shift a lot of people into work that matters more.

The biggest change has been with software developers. We haven't added many junior website or software developers to the team lately. People on our leadership team and across the company, using AI, can now write code as well as a developer fresh out of school, and sometimes better.

Here's what I've learned from that: the valuable skill isn't writing code anymore. It's understanding how the business fits together. Where the information lives. What the source of truth is. How to show it in a way your team can read quickly and act on. Someone who understands that, with AI beside them, can build almost anything.

Where AI still falls short

Customer conversations. This is where I think people get AI wrong. The future of customer support isn't bots instead of people. It's bots and people working as a team.

Here's how it works at Purple Cow. When you text us, you're on your way to a real person on our team. While you wait to get connected, our AI helper jumps in to see if it can answer your question or solve your issue right away. If it can, great: you're sorted faster. If it can't, no problem, because a rep is still on the way. Think of it as the opposite of sitting on hold: instead of waiting with nothing happening, someone is already working on your problem.

It's not replacing our reps. It's there to speed up your experience. Today, it fully solves less than 2% of conversations before a rep gets there, and it's doing well with those. We're going to be careful and deliberate about growing that. It still has room to get better, and the human feel of talking to Purple Cow matters too much to rush.

Sales. AI isn't good at selling, whether it's by text, email or phone. Where it is getting good is booking appointments: talking with a customer just enough to get a time on the calendar so a person can have the real conversation.

Why we're hiring more people, not fewer

I think AI has given small businesses the ability to take market share from big ones faster than ever. Your team can be smaller and still move quickly. That's exactly what's happening here. Our leadership team used to ship 3 or 4 big projects a quarter. Now we ship 15 to 25.

And when a business like ours grows, it gets more customers, and more customers means more people to take care of them. That's why Purple Cow is hiring more people now than ever before, even as AI takes over more tasks.

Could AI replace everyone one day?

Maybe. There's a version of the future where AI does nearly everything, and it's just me and a couple of people left, having fun changing an industry. I don't see that happening any time soon.

What I do see is that some roles will shrink, across every industry. Anyone who tells you otherwise isn't being straight with you. The best thing you can do, whether you're a student or twenty years into your career, is get good at the things AI can't do yet: strategy, planning, execution, selling, and understanding how a business really works. Then let AI handle the rest.

What this means for our customers

When you call or text us, you're connected with a person. While you wait, our AI helper may solve a simple question for you so you're not stuck waiting. That person is better trained than ever, because they get continuous coaching based on real conversations. And because AI helps us run more efficiently (we cut our Salesforce licences from 110 to 7 and save about $100,000 a year, for example), we can keep prices low while we keep making the service better.

Questions people ask

Is Purple Cow using AI to replace customer service?

No. Our AI helper works alongside our reps, not instead of them. When you text us, it tries to answer your question or solve your issue while you wait to be connected with a person, so you get help faster. Today it fully solves less than 2% of conversations, and we're growing that carefully.

Has AI replaced jobs at Purple Cow?

AI has taken over a lot of tasks, and we've moved people into new roles as a result. We also haven't added many junior software developers lately. Overall, though, Purple Cow is hiring more people than ever because the business is growing.

Is it still worth studying marketing or design?

Yes, but focus on what AI can't do well. AI now handles much of the hands-on design work. Strategy, planning and actually executing a plan are still very human skills, and they're in high demand.