The Association of Webmasters: I Gave My Company to AI for 6 Months — Here's What Survived Spoiler: I'm still here. So is my team. But nothing works the same.

Saturday, June 20, 2026

I Gave My Company to AI for 6 Months — Here's What Survived Spoiler: I'm still here. So is my team. But nothing works the same.

The Experiment That Could Have Killed My Business

If you're interested, I also have a really good article here

Six months ago, I made a decision that sounded insane to everyone around me.<br>I started handing over pieces of my company to artificial intelligence.<br>Not just the boring stuff. Not just the email drafts and meeting notes. I mean the real stuff. The systems. The processes. The infrastructure that keeps a 10-person video production company running without collapsing into chaos.<br>And I didn't stop there.<br>I moved almost every computer in my office to Linux. I killed Slack. I killed Notion. I replaced them with open-source alternatives running on my own servers. I built custom software. I connected everything to an AI agent that now runs the show.<br>After six months, I can say with confidence:<br>We are now an AI-powered company.<br>But here's the twist. The term everyone uses for this is "AI-first." I hate that term. It's marketing fluff, like "cloud-based" or "blockchain" back in the day.<br>I prefer something else.<br>We are Human-First, AI-Powered.<br>And today, I'm going to show you exactly what that means.<br>The Problem: Creative People Are Chaos Machines<br>My company makes YouTube videos. Lots of them.<br>Every video goes through the same process:<br>An idea

Research

A script

Filming (this video, right now)

Product shots

Editing

Review

Thumbnail + title

Publishing

Simple, right?<br>Wrong.<br>Behind the scenes, there's purchasing, inventory management, finance, project management, sales, IT, and a thousand tiny decisions that keep everything from falling apart. And here's the thing about creative people — we're not exactly known for our organizational skills.<br>We miss deadlines. We get inspired at 2 AM and change everything. We lose track of gear. We forget what we said in a video three years ago.<br>For years, I tried to fix this with traditional software development tools.<br>I implemented Agile. I used Scrum, Jira, Kanban, standup meetings — everything I learned from my years as a programmer. And it helped. A little.<br>But I always dreamed of something more.<br>I dreamed of a custom application. One program that controlled everything — tasks, calendars, budgets, scripts, footage, inventory. All in one place. All perfectly organized.<br>The problem? Building that kind of software costs a fortune. You need a developer for six months, then more to maintain it. Most small companies can't afford that.<br>I couldn't afford that.<br>But I could afford something else.<br>An AI.<br>How I Built the Impossible<br>First, I did a full financial analysis of my company. Every expense, every subscription, everything we were wasting money on.<br>I fed it all into an LLM and asked it to categorize every single expense. It cross-referenced emails, databases, and company names. It figured out what we were actually paying for and whether it was worth it.<br>That's when I discovered we were spending a ridiculous amount on apps like Slack and Notion.<br>So I killed them.<br>I replaced Slack with Element (open source). I replaced Notion with Outline. I built custom integrations. I moved everything to open-source, self-hosted alternatives running on my own hardware.<br>Then I built Orion.<br>Orion started as a simple benchmark database. I'd test computers, run performance tests, and store the results. It became an inventory system. Then a task manager. Then a project tracker. Then a full operating system for the entire company.<br>Today, Orion handles everything:<br>Video pipelines

Team tasks

Google Calendar sync

Sales data

Inventory tracking

Everything

But here's the thing — I built all of this with AI.<br>I tell the AI what I need. It writes the code. I review it. We iterate. What used to take me months now takes days.<br>10x faster. No joke.<br>The Brain in the Basement<br>Remember that server I mentioned?<br>It's a monster. Threadripper CPU. 96 cores. 96GB of VRAM on an RTX 6000 Pro. The most powerful graphics card you can put in a PC before you need a datacenter.<br>Inside that server runs something called Janus.<br>Janus is my AI assistant. But "assistant" is an understatement. Janus is the brain of the entire company.<br>Here's what Janus can do:<br>Access every video we've ever made

Search transcriptions and pull clips instantly

Know which products we've covered

Answer any question about company operations

Transcribe audio

Send WhatsApp messages

Alert the team when something is confirmed

Find things from old videos

Remember decisions so we don't repeat mistakes

And every Monday morning, Janus runs a routine:<br>"Here are the videos that should have been published last week. Here are the tasks that didn't get done. Is it realistic to hit this week's deadlines? If not, let's reschedule. And by...