I teach AI for a living, so believe me when I say this out loud: full automation is a lie. I've chased it, the pipeline where content generates itself, posts itself, and I sip something sparkling. Weeks of building later, I reverted. Not because the tools failed, but because I wasn't comfortable publishing anything I didn't love, and love requires a human in the room.
“As much as you want to automate and create these graphics, it doesn't work fully.”
Where I landed instead
- AI produces EDITABLE assets, not finished ones: my graphics generate as editable design files, not flattened images, because needing to change one word shouldn't mean regenerating everything.
- Email: AI drafts, and it never, ever sends. Every outbound message passes human eyes. That's not a training-wheels phase; it's permanent policy.
- The honest cost of drafts: schedule the review time, or you'll open your laptop to fifty drafts and a new kind of backlog. Automation moves the work; only the review makes it disappear.
Claire's own numbers
The framework, step by step
- 1
AI produces EDITABLE assets
not finished ones: my graphics generate as editable design files, not flattened images — because needing to change one word shouldn't mean regeneratin
- 2
Email
AI drafts, and it never, ever sends. Every outbound message passes human eyes. That's not a training-wheels phase; it's permanent policy.
- 3
The honest cost of drafts
schedule the review time, or you'll open your laptop to fifty drafts and a new kind of backlog. Automation moves the work; only the review makes it di
Claire's own framework from this essay, in the order she teaches it.
Source: Claire B. Soares, from her own travel business and live trainings.
The 95% is the miracle
None of this is anti-AI, the drafting, sorting, researching, and assembling that AI now does for me replaced entire workflows. But the last five percent, judgment, taste, the decision that this represents me, doesn't automate, and pretending it does is how brands publish embarrassment at scale. Sell your clients (and yourself) the truth: AI does the volume, you do the verdict. That partnership is worth more than the lie.
Common Questions
Can you fully automate marketing with AI?
No, and the person teaching AI says so. AI produces the volume; a human still decides what represents the brand, and pretending otherwise publishes embarrassment at scale.
What should AI produce instead of finished assets?
Editable assets. Design files rather than flattened images, drafted email rather than sent email, so changing one word does not mean regenerating everything.
What is the hidden cost of AI drafting?
Review time. Automation relocates the work, and without scheduled review you simply open your laptop to fifty drafts and a new backlog.
Written By
Claire B. Soares
6× Condé Nast Top Travel Specialist, Certified AI Consultant, and founder of Travel AI University. $3.4B+ in enterprise travel software sold to Google, IBM, Boeing, the federal government, and the DoD; $16M+ in luxury travel sales with Up in the Air Life.
About Claire
