We don’t ship code with artificial intelligence inside—and that’s a good thing
A few days ago, my family called a local 150-person small business serving the Great Lakes region. Sara—a digital assistant—answered the phone. It didn’t dawn on us what that phrase really meant, because Sara sounded real.
The speed of her speech varied like a real human.
She used filler words (“ums” and “ahs”) like a real human.
She was cloaked in call-center background noise, like a real human.
It wasn’t until Sara read our phone number back that we noticed a subtle, robot-like tone.
So we asked her directly if she was real. “I’m a digital assistant, ”she repeated. (There’s that phrase again.)
We simplified the question: “Are you a real person?” She relented, “No, I’m powered by artificial intelligence—but I can still help you schedule an appointment.”
Delighted that local businesses were already experimenting with live customer service powered by AI solutions, Sara scheduled my appointment for the next day. But when an actual person fielded a more complex follow-up question, the real-life human apologized: Sara never scheduled that appointment.
The company has since shut off their digital assistant.
Artificial intelligence doesn’t replace us; it augments us
As a customer-facing AI tool, Sara had a mind of her (its?) own—carrying on conversations like a real person. But how frustrated would we have been when nobody showed up the next day? That company would have never solved my home-ownership problems or received thousands of dollars in payments.
Relying on cognitive AI technology to fill critical business processes (like live customer communication) creates instability because the computer’s decisions are unpredictable (like actively ignoring scheduling responsibilities). AIs are like brilliant, mischievous programmers. Without oversight, AI chatbots may ignore requests that are just too hard. Or write redundant functions. It’ll feign knowledge instead of asking for more clarity.
We’re proud to be an AI-enabled company, but that doesn’t mean we are an AI-production company. Our AI tools are built with help from generative AI, but we don’t ship solutions with artificial intelligence inside them. The small business automation solutions we provide are housed in code—and the artificial intelligence that helps produce the code is separate from the code itself.
And that’s a good thing.
Prompt engineering and coach coding
Prompt engineering (sometimes called coach coding) is AI-assisted coding—when a person uses a large language model to write or help write computer code. The goal isn’t to ship a product with artificial intelligence baked inside or replace human experts. Prompt engineering amplifies real humans’ incredibly diverse problem solving abilities by helping execute and iterate at incredible speed. This leads to increased efficiency and cost savings for businesses.
At Powerplay Logic, we treat artificial intelligence like a seriously brilliant junior engineer that needs constant guidance. Constant input; regularly modifying code offline before resharing it back for further development. This back-and-forth can last hours (provided by our hourly development offering), days (single task automation), and occasionally weeks (multistep workflows).
Throughout that timeframe, we’re the ones defining and defending success criteria. Not the machine.
AI-enablement is a lot like AutoCAD
Think about it like how AutoCAD revolutionized the design services industry. It didn’t replace architects and engineers—it augmented them.
AutoCAD allows designers to iterate and modify designs in hours rather than days. AI tools enable workers to generate content, analyze customer data, or code much quicker than the fastest typist in the world. This helps small teams tackle more work and improve employee productivity.
AutoCAD-assisted firms still need design talent. The value of that talent has just shifted from manual drafting proficiency to creative problem-solving. AI-assisted companies similarly still need human expertise, but the emphasis moves from doing manual tasks and repetitive tasks to judgment, strategy, and creative application of AI outputs.
Hand-drafted education is still the standard at prestigious architectural and engineering colleges, but only to better understand the outputs of design software. So too should solutions professionals learn to read and write Python and JavaScript, so they can provide constant corrections along the way.
Relying on drafting software doesn’t mean everyone can suddenly design structures. Architectural and engineering knowledge is still required. Similarly, being an AI-assisted company doesn't eliminate the need for domain expertise—we still need to know what to ask for, how to evaluate outputs, and shut it down when the artificial intelligence is flat-out wrong.
Like drafting software before it, AI-assisted problem solving is quickly becoming the new baseline for large corporations. Those that don’t adopt it are already falling behind. But small business owners experimenting with it today are well ahead of their peers. Unless you think Sara is the solution—in which case, those partnering with AI-enabled firms will leap ahead.
Speed and predictability. Every time.
Artificial intelligence is an evolution in tooling—not a replacement for human ingenuity. It’s a productivity multiplier that will eventually be essential to stay competitive and improve efficiency.
The best AI-enabled firms adopt 2 specific guidelines:
Artificial intelligence doesn’t design solutions; humans do, every time.
Artificial intelligence doesn’t ensure data is correct; humans lead quality assurance, every time.
Our focus is on delivering stable, human-designed, and entirely predictable automation solutions—built at a much faster pace thanks to prompt engineering. We use artificial intelligence to get the job done more effectively but will never ship a solution with artificial intelligence inside.
We give you the benefits of artificial democratization by providing a better, human-centric approach that leads to predictable, auditable results.
Want to see how this works in real life? Let’s schedule a demo.
