I saw something last week that made me smile.

Anthropic, the company behind Claude, one of the world’s leading AI tools, was advertising for a personal assistant.

The salary? £145,000 a year.

The job involved managing diaries, organising travel, dealing with emails and generally keeping things running smoothly.

All things that AI is increasingly supposed to be able to do for us.

You can imagine the comments online.

“Couldn’t they just ask Claude?”

But there’s something interesting about one of the world’s leading AI companies recognising the value of having an experienced human being doing that job.

Because there’s a big difference between completing a task and knowing how best to handle a situation.

Coincidentally, I had a conversation at a wedding last week that illustrated this rather nicely.

I got chatting to a friend who runs a high-end travel agency. He’s been in the industry for around 40 years and was telling me how some of his clients had started experimenting with AI to organise their own trips.

And why wouldn’t they? AI can research destinations, recommend hotels, find flights and put together some pretty impressive itineraries.

But what happens when something goes wrong?

A cancelled flight, a hotel that isn’t what was promised, a missed connection halfway around the world.

That’s when his 40 years of experience really count.

He knows who to speak to, how to resolve problems and what to do when things don’t go to plan.

AI might be able to organise the perfect holiday, but having somebody who knows what to do when it stops being perfect is another matter entirely.

I’m a huge advocate of AI. I use it every day, both personally and across The Bright Click, and it’s genuinely transformed the way we work.

But I think businesses sometimes overlook something important.

AI doesn’t automatically come with the experience needed to make good decisions.

Take marketing.

Anyone can ask ChatGPT to write a blog, produce a marketing strategy or analyse a website.

But knowing whether the output is any good, whether the recommendations make commercial sense or whether something important has been overlooked requires experience and judgement.

Someone who’s spent years working in an industry can spot things that somebody relying entirely on AI might never question.

And that’s why I think the real opportunity isn’t replacing experienced people with AI.

It’s giving experienced people access to tools that make them even better at what they do.

A good marketer with AI can be a better marketer. A good travel agent with AI can be a better travel agent.

But access to AI doesn’t suddenly give somebody 40 years of experience.

And judging by that £145,000 job advert, even Anthropic understands that.