Irreplaceable

Welcome back

Welcome to Talk to Walk, your go-to newsletter empowering small business owners with clear, actionable AI insights to boost your success from day one!

Today, we wanted to take a more personal approach, as it is that time of summer when most people are thinking more about vacation than business.

Prompt of the week: Do My Job

For years, we’ve been hearing that AI is coming for our jobs. In many cases, it already has. As a freelancer, I haven’t seen this firsthand. But the question stuck with me:

If AI can replace a Staff UXR, can it at least do the work for me (the same work I charge clients for)?

So over the past month, I ran an experiment. At every step of a real UX research project, I asked:

Can AI do this part of my job?

I didn’t use fancy tools or enterprise platforms, just ChatGPT.

Step 1: Research Planning

I fed ChatGPT everything I knew about the topic and asked it to create a research plan.

The result? An A+. I had to tweak the formatting a bit, but it was shockingly close to something I’d write myself.

Step 2: Recruiting Participants

I asked ChatGPT to help book research calls.

This is where it fell flat.

I already had good email templates, and AI couldn’t actually send the emails or manage responses for me.

Step 3: Running the Interviews

Obviously, I had to conduct the calls myself. But I used an AI note-taker (not ChatGPT) to transcribe and summarize them.

That alone saved me 15 minutes per interview, no more slogging through recordings to write notes.

Step 4: Analyzing & Telling the Story

After the research, I had my conclusions. But I still needed to turn them into a compelling narrative, something stakeholders would actually act on.

I gave ChatGPT my findings, transcripts, and data, and asked it to generate multiple versions of the story.

The first drafts seemed promising, but in the end, I went with a version of my own.

So… Could AI Take My Job?

Not yet. But it definitely made me faster.

I saved:

• ~3 hours during planning

• ~5 hours during analysis

• 15 minutes per interview just from skipping manual note review

If I still managed a full team, these time savings would have absolutely changed my hiring decisions. We could’ve done more with fewer researchers.

So if you have a job, you're probably safe for now.

But if you're trying to break in? It's harder than ever without the experience to know what to ask AI, or when you’re at a serious disadvantage.

My Challenge to You, dear reader:

This week, be curious.

Try to outsource every single part of your job to AI.

Then ask yourself:

• Am I replaceable?

• Do I even need to be replaced?

Chances are, you’re in the clear.

But the exercise might just show you what makes your work valuable and where AI can quietly give you your time back.

Have we forgotten the purpose of software?

I looked at my bookmarks the other day and realized I had saved over 30 AI tools in the past three months. I actively use… maybe 3. (Searching app of the week for this article may exacerbate this)

We’ve hit this strange moment where discovering new tools feels productive, but using them rarely sticks.

Because most tools don’t solve the right problem. Or they do, but not in the right way for you.

So here’s the new rule I’m testing:

I don’t save tools anymore. I only bookmark use cases.

If I run into a problem more than twice, then I go tool hunting.

As a freelance UX Researcher running my own show, here are the AI Apps I use every week:

• ChatGPT

  • Lightly use other chatbots

• Fathom Notetaker

• Granola

• Notion

• Canva

The list of tools I have tried is longer than I can remember, and while they were powerful, the problem they solved was niche, and I wasn’t in that niche.

What’s the last tool you kept using after the first week?

That’s all for now.

Got an idea we should chase next? A favorite tool we should test? We read every suggestion.

And if you’re not subscribed yet... well, what are you waiting for? Come walk with us.

Catch you soon,
The Talk to Walk team