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Overview
Most small businesses think they’re using AI the moment they open ChatGPT. That’s a tool habit. Building your marketing processes around AI is a business model, and the gap between the two shows up in your results long before anyone can explain why.
In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, John Jantsch talks with Jérémy Jarry, CMO of Bookipi, about what happened when he rebuilt his marketing team around AI over the past year. Jarry explains what AI native means in practice, why his team started with one person and one dreaded task, and how they learned to measure AI by hours saved and revenue earned.
This conversation is for small business owners, marketers, and agency leaders who are using AI tools but haven’t seen the payoff yet. You’ll hear how to pick your first process, what human in the loop looks like day to day, when to scale AI back, and how to keep up with constant change without chasing every new model.
Guest Bio
Jérémy Jarry is the Chief Marketing Officer of Bookipi, an international SaaS platform that millions of small businesses use for invoicing, proposals, contracts, websites, and getting paid. Over the past year, he rebuilt Bookipi’s marketing team around AI from the ground up and wrote about the experience for Entrepreneur. His work centers on growth, go-to-market execution, and applying AI across marketing so lean teams can compete with much larger companies.
Key Takeaways
- Jarry defines AI native as redesigning a process from scratch with AI’s capabilities in mind. He describes it as a mindset change for the whole team.
- Start with your calendar. Look for the work that eats the most time and the work your team dreads, then see where AI fits.
- Prove it with one person first. Bookipi started by automating one marketer’s reporting, which freed that person to explain the numbers instead of gathering them.
- The same thinking applies outside marketing. A plumber with an AI receptionist can keep fixing the leak while the next job gets booked.
- In a Bookipi survey of more than 2,000 customers, the top reason for skipping AI was a knowledge gap. The team expected cost to top the list.
- AI still needs your direction. A prompt like “write an email for John” goes nowhere until you define the topic and the outcome you want.
- Give people time to adopt. Bookipi let slower adopters keep their old processes, and they came around after seeing teammates spend more time on creative work.
- Human in the loop means real review steps. Bookipi feeds AI a central knowledge base for brand voice, and nothing launches until a person checks every asset.
- Measure hours saved and revenue. Counting how many agents the team built each week told Bookipi very little.
- Review time has to be shorter than build time. If checking AI’s work takes longer than doing it yourself, pull the process back and rethink it.
Great Moments (Timestamps)
- [00:02] – John on the difference between a tool habit and a business model
- [01:11] – The moment Bookipi decided to rethink its marketing processes
- [02:04] – What AI native means, and why Jarry calls it a buzzword worth defining
- [04:12] – Where small teams should start: your calendar
- [05:08] – Automated reporting and the plumber with an AI receptionist
- [07:23] – The 2,000-customer survey and the real barrier to AI adoption
- [10:44] – Where adoption stalled and how the team handled it
- [12:43] – What human in the loop looks like at Bookipi
- [14:46] – Measuring agents built versus hours saved
- [16:35] – Keeping up with the pace of AI without chasing every tool
- [17:55] – How Bookipi started with a tradie’s invoicing app
Memorable Quotes
“Most small businesses think they’re using AI the moment they open ChatGPT at their desk. And that’s a tool habit, not a business model.” – John Jantsch
“Look at your calendar. Look at what is actually taking a lot of time. Look at what you don’t like doing and see if you can integrate AI within it.” – Jarry
“I don’t know many marketers that like to create reports.” – Jarry
“We need to make sure that the time that the human is actually going to spend to review the campaign is actually less than the time it would take them to actually create a campaign from scratch themselves.” – Jarry
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