# Confessions of an AI Expert: I've Got the Subscriptions to Prove It

I'm an AI expert. I've got the subscriptions to prove it. A self-aware look at the AI conversation, from the SaaS-pocalypse to AI Expert Bingo.

I use AI every day. It writes first drafts, checks code, summarises meetings I should have paid more attention to, and occasionally tells me my ideas are excellent.

It's extraordinary technology. I'd struggle to work without it now.

Which is how I came to be an AI expert.

I didn't sit an exam. Nobody handed me a certificate. One day I looked at my credit card statement and realised I'd become one.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between an AI enthusiast and an AI expert is three additional subscriptions.

I have four. So I'm an expert, and possibly a thought leader.

## The SaaS-pocalypse

The big prediction this year is that AI will kill software as a service. Why pay for someone else's software when AI can build you your own?

I find this argument convincing. I've nodded along to it in several meetings.

Then I go home and use AI to build software. Which I then think about selling. As a service.

> **Confession 01 — SaaS-pocalypse**
>
> SaaS is dead. AI will replace everything. Anyway, subscribe to my new AI tool. Just $10 a month.

I'm not alone. The tools that are supposedly ending the subscription economy seem very good at starting subscriptions.

There's a serious question hiding in here, and [it's one I keep coming back to](/blog/how-you-deliver-is-the-product/). If AI lets me build a product in a weekend, it lets everyone else build it in a weekend too. What exactly am I charging $10 a month for?

I'll leave that question for another day. Possibly in a paid newsletter.

## The expert economy

Being an AI expert comes with responsibilities. Mostly billing ones.

There's the monthly plan. The pro plan, for when the monthly plan isn't enough. The API credits, for when the pro plan isn't enough.

Then there's the moment every expert dreads.

> **Confession 02 — Token economics**
>
> The problem with being an AI expert is when my tokens run out, I can't do any more work.

Fortunately, there's another path. Once you're an expert, you can help other people become experts.

> **Confession 03 — The course**
>
> I'm an AI expert. Want to become one too? Buy my course.

And once they've done the course, they're experts too. So they can sell a course.

I haven't mapped out this business model yet. I'm fairly sure it's a circle.

## AI Expert Bingo

Every profession develops its own vocabulary. AI managed it before most of us had finished reading the terms of service.

So I've made a game. It's called AI Expert Bingo, and there's one rule: you can only tick a square when you catch yourself saying it.

Not your colleague. Not the person in your feed. You.

| AI | Expert | Bingo |
|---|---|---|
| AI transformation | AI ecosystem | Agentic workflows |
| AI-powered customer service | AI strategy | AI automation |
| AI readiness | AI-powered chatbot | Free square: "I'll get the AI to do it" |

I got a full house in a single meeting. It was my meeting.

For anyone newer to all this, there's AI Beginner Bingo. Same rule.

| AI | Beginner | Bingo |
|---|---|---|
| "Can AI do that?" | "Is that ChatGPT?" | "Did a robot write this?" |
| "Wait, it can read PDFs?" | "Is it going to take my job?" | "How did it know that?" |
| "Do I say please to it?" | "Is this the free one?" | Free square: "That's a bit scary" |

I still say most of these. Usually straight after the expert ones.

## We're all in on it

None of this changes what I think about the technology. AI is extraordinary. It has changed how I work, and I expect it to change a lot more.

It's the conversation around it that has gone a bit strange.

The good news is that nobody has to sit this one out. Expert or beginner, we're all saying the words. We're all paying the subscriptions. Most of us are quietly checking how many tokens we've got left.

> **Confession 04 — Credentials**
>
> I'm an AI expert. I've got the subscriptions to prove it.