The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast AI Is a Survival Skill for Consultants
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Mar 25, 2026 Steve Cunningham, former agency owner turned AI-native strategist and founder of ReadItForMe and Simple, tells how AI forced him to reinvent his business. He explains what an AI-native full stack consultant is. He talks about context engineering, platform-agnostic choices, AI-ready deliverables, and QC guardrails for scalable consulting workflows.
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How AI Nearly Ended Read It For Me
- Steve Cunningham built Read It For Me and read a book a day for 10 years before AI disrupted his business model.
- When ChatGPT produced passable book summaries, his content revenue declined and he had to transform the company with AI to survive.
AI Tipping Point Changes Consultant Value
- AI quality rose from ~10% wins/ties in 2024 to ~70% wins/ties by mid-2025 in benchmark tasks when given full context.
- Becoming an AI-native full stack consultant means knowing what good looks like across domains and how to supply AI the right context and prompts.
Two Hours To Produce Hundreds Of Hours Of Work
- Steve described a morning where he produced 260 hours worth of design and copy output using about two hours of active work and waiting on AI.
- He emphasized he didn't possess prior hands-on skills but knew what to ask and what good looked like.