The AI Brainstorming Partner You're Not Using (But Should Be)

As you're thinking about your business or side hustle, here's something I encourage you to do that most entrepreneurs overlook: use AI to brainstorm.

If you follow me at all, you know I'm very bullish on artificial intelligence in general, and specifically around use cases for schools. But I think one of the most powerful applications of AI—that people simply aren't thinking about—is as a thought partner for brainstorming.

Here's what I mean: Pick your LLM of choice—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, whatever you have access to—and ask it to be your thought partner. Start putting in your ideas about your potential business or service. Then ask the crucial questions:

• How would the AI package this?

• How would the AI sell it?

• How would the AI position it in the market?

But here's where it gets really valuable: Ask the AI to push back on your ideas. Tell it to be a little curmudgeonly, a little doubtful. Have it challenge your assumptions and poke holes in your thinking. If the AI can't figure out blind spots or identify things you weren't considering, you might be onto something—or you might need to dig deeper.

This approach has been invaluable in my own transition from 28 years in private education to running a business that serves schools. The AI doesn't just validate your ideas; it stress-tests them in ways your friends and family might be too polite to do.

We're still in the early days of understanding how to maximize AI's potential, especially for those of us building businesses around education. This post is really about recognizing that we need to use AI in ways we're not currently using it—or haven't even thought about using it yet.

More importantly, it's about using AI to help you determine and outline your business with the kind of objective, analytical eye that's hard to maintain when you're emotionally invested in your own ideas.

The transition from educator to entrepreneur is challenging enough. Why not leverage every tool available to make it a little easier?