Most people are using AI as a better Google. That works, but it isn’t the breakthrough. The breakthrough happens when AI starts doing things for you. I wrote “20 Things My AI Agents Do” to show the practical, daily tasks my agents handle for me.
A famous chart from Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm shows how new technology gets adopted. It moves from innovators to early adopters, then across a gap called the chasm, then on to the early majority, the late majority, and finally the laggards. Most new technology dies in that gap because mainstream people don’t adopt tools the way enthusiasts do.
Using AI for search has started crossing that chasm. Using AI to actually do work has not. Right now, that is still an innovator and early adopter experience.
That’s why I’m watching the new wave of personal AI assistants so closely: Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s dots in ChatGPT, xAI’s Grok Bot, and now Anthropic's Claude Duet. I believe these are what will carry AI across the chasm fully.
Here’s why. Once you connect your inbox, calendar, and the other tools you use every day, these assistants stop waiting for you to ask. They come to you with what needs your attention and offer to handle it. That is the eye-opening moment. Nobody has to learn how to prompt. The assistant shows them what’s possible.
So here’s my advice for churches. Worry less about which nonprofit or enterprise ChatGPT or Claude plan to buy, and more about getting your staff and volunteers to use a personal assistant like Muse, Dots, Grok Bot, or Duet. That is the tool the average person will actually use, and it’s where they’ll have their own breakthrough.
A word of caution: these tools are new, most require a paid plan, and they need access to your inbox to be useful. Start with a small pilot group, set clear rules about what church and member information they can touch, and grow from there. Also, make sure you create a basic AI policy.
My Claude setup is advanced and works, but I’m an innovator. Most people on your team are in the early majority, late majority, or laggards. Don’t build your AI plan around the early market. Let your early adopters experiment freely, and give everyone else simple tools that meet them where they are. Personal AI assistants are the perfect fit.
