Things have changed.
The bar used to be produce content, produce content, produce content, and most people didn’t have the time or the persistence to keep going, so just showing up was the whole game. That bar is gone now. Anybody can type a prompt and get ten decent posts before lunch. Which means the thing that actually keeps a reader with you is the part AI can’t fake. David McIlroy has built a solopreneur business coaching creative entrepreneurs, with 34,000+ subscribers on Substack, and we spent this conversation on exactly that tension: how you grow when the tools that used to separate you from everybody else are now free to everybody else. We got into the 1:5 engagement ratio, why community became the whole point after the pandemic, and where he draws the line on letting AI touch his fiction. Watch the full thing above.
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Outline
(1:25) – From Medium to Substack, and starting with one publication
(3:37) – Youth worker to hiking blog to solopreneur
(5:36) – Why the digital-course boom cooled and community took over
(9:18) – Finding your why and your message
(10:49) – The 1:5 ratio: using other people’s audiences
(13:34) – The content bar collapsed with AI
(18:07) – AI should amplify your strengths, not replace your expertise
(22:27) – Using AI as an editor for fiction
(23:28) – The sensitivity check: AI on a humanitarian content team
(26:57) – David’s new group coaching program
(29:17) – Who should reach out to David
My Takeaways
The content bar hit zero. David and I got to the same place from different sides. The old advantage was volume, and volume is now free. So the question flips. If a post can come out 100% AI-created, what actually separates you from the hundred other people running the same prompt? David put it this way: “You can create. It’s the kind of content, it’s the depth that now you can go to, which makes the difference.” The depth is yours. The prompt isn’t.
Borrow other people’s audiences. When your own list is small, David’s move is a rough 1:5 ratio, one thing you post, five thoughtful comments on bigger creators’ work. And he was firm that the comment has to earn its place. “It needs to be something thoughtful that adds to the conversation and demonstrates that you have some level of expertise to share as well.” Not “great idea, happy for you.” That’s the version an AI bot posts, and readers can smell it. (I get those on LinkedIn constantly, three perfectly structured paragraphs from someone who clearly never read the post.)
Share the messy stuff. This is the one I’d underline for any leader building a presence online. David’s point was that people don’t connect with polished text, they connect with a real person behind it. “You’ve got to share some of the messy stuff as well, the struggles, the good times, the family stuff, the pets, the nature.” AI can generate the frameworks. It can’t hand you your kid’s drawing or your dog running through the grass, and that’s the part a reader actually stays for. It’s the same reason I keep coming back to community as the thing that carries you.
AI as editor, not author. David keeps AI completely out of his fiction as a writer, but he runs finished manuscripts through it to catch plot holes and inconsistencies. “It’s working like an editor on some level. It doesn’t produce any ideas or guide the story in any way, but it helps keep me right if I’m making mistakes.” That’s exactly how I use it too. On the humanitarian side, my content team of about 25 people runs work through Claude to check whether a message written by a non-Latino would read wrong to a Latino audience. Not to write it. To catch what a human would miss and then keep going. The line David draws is the right one: the moment AI starts replacing what makes you you, you’ve stopped growing.
One Question to Sit With
Where do you draw the line, what do you let AI do, and what stays yours? The bar for producing content just hit zero, and the part that’s actually worth following is the part AI can’t fake.
About David McIlroy
David McIlroy is a strategy coach for creative entrepreneurs, a solopreneur, fiction author, and podcaster based in Northern Ireland, with 34,000+ subscribers across his Substack publications. He helps creators build a personal brand, strategy, and system for clarity and growth. His new weekly group coaching program opens Tuesday, July 28, 2026. Subscribe and reach out to him on Substack.
About me
Joel Salinas is an Executive AI Coach for leaders at small and mid-sized businesses and nonprofits. 1:1 coaching, team workshops, and AI strategy work built around amplifying what your team is already good at. Creator of the AI Leadership Triad. He writes Leadership in Change. If you want help thinking through your own AI strategy or online presence, start here.
Written by a human, for humans.
