🐒 Are You Suffering from Dumb Monkey Syndrome?

Hey friends,

Kodak invented the digital camera. Nokia ruled mobile phones. Blockbuster had the chance to buy Netflix. All gone. Why? They failed to evolve.

That’s what we call Dumb Monkey Syndrome — and it’s alive and well in today’s AI revolution.

🎙 This Week on The Dumb Monkey Show

In Episode 1, we set the stage for the whole show.
👉 Why “Dumb Monkey”?
👉 What Dumb Monkey Syndrome looks like in business.
👉 The first practical steps you can take to bring AI into your workflow (without overwhelm).

🐒 Avoiding Dumb Monkey Syndrome

From our chat, a few big themes stood out:

1. Failing to evolve = becoming irrelevant.

   Companies that resist change don’t just plateau—they vanish. Kodak, Nokia, Blockbuster. In an AI-driven world, standing still is moving backwards.

2. ROBOTS everywhere.

   We call them Repeated, Obligatory, Boring, Operational Tasks. Every business is full of them—admin, paperwork, repetitive processes. These are the easiest and safest starting points for AI.

3. Small wins beat big bang strategies.

   Forget about “AI transformation” slide decks. Start with one or two use cases that save time this week. Prove the value. Build momentum. That’s how you create an AI culture without overwhelming your team.

🛠 AI Tip of the Week

Set up Custom Instructions in your AI tool (ChatGPT+, Copilot, Claude).

Most people skip this—but it changes everything. By default, your AI assistant knows nothing about you or your business. It’s like hiring the world’s smartest intern but not giving them a job description.

Here’s how to fix it:

• Tell it who you are and what you do.

• Share your company context (industry, customers, style).

• Specify your tone (e.g. professional, friendly, concise).

• Add guardrails like: “Always show sources” or “Never invent numbers.”

And one golden rule: always pay for the business version. Free models train on your data. Paid models protect it. Think of it as insurance for your IP.

🧪 Use Case from the Episode

We shared two quick but powerful examples:

Invoices at scale: A client processed 800 invoices a day with 8 staff. AI now reads invoices (even handwritten), checks Salesforce, matches funding requirements, and validates them automatically. Result? Faster processing, lower costs, and staff freed up for meaningful client work.

Personal productivity: I used Claude to clean up my laptop. Dozens of random files were instantly sorted into logical folders and subfolders. What would have taken hours was done in minutes. Proof that AI isn’t just for big business—it’s a personal assistant too.

💬 Question to the Tribe

📲 Resources & Links

🎧 Listen to the Podcast Episode 1 on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

📘 Book: The CEO Who Mocked AI (Until It Made Him Millions) by Aamir Qutub

🚀 Dumb Monkey AI Academy

📱 Dumb Monkey AI Academy App: Apple | Android