How We Built an AI-First Business (And How You Can, Too)

So we posted this on X the other day, and safe to say it got some eyeballs…

So we wanted to dive in a little deeper and explain our thinking.

Okay, a lot deeper.

In a sentence: almost no one is making the most critical hire they should be making right now, because they don’t know what to… call it?

Every company knows they need to “implement AI.” But very few have intentionally hired the people responsible for actually doing it.

We’re talking about people who live inside your business and use AI to eliminate processes, compress timelines, and increase output across every department.

These roles don’t really have widespread names yet.

Here’s the correct answer… It honestly doesn’t matter.

The right person for this job probably won’t care what you call them or what their title is.

They’ll be too busy using AI as a high-tech drain snake to unclog your business’s spigots. But you do need to call them something, something that can, at the very least, attract them to your business.

Example: here’s what we’re calling a role we’re hiring for right now:

Yup, real role.

When we sat down to write the job description, we didn’t try to write some sophisticated corporate lingo bingo.

Instead, we just described exactly what we’d want to see if we were on the other end of the screen: brutal honesty.

Here’s the very first bullet under “what your days will look like…”

Some other things we called out plainly… The person should be:

Game recognizes game. The people we’d want in this role will look at this and know exactly how to prove their merit.

They’ll bypass an application, find one of our emails, and send us the vibecoded tool they’re working on that week. Or the reel they posted that went viral last week, and break down why.

This is just one role under the “AI Operator” umbrella, specifically focused on content. But it’s not our first AI hire (and likely won’t be the one you should make).

Today, we’ll tell you what we call the role you should hire for, and how you can find, vet, and deploy the right person for it.

As we teased above, the best money Codie says she’s ever spent as a CEO... is on an internal AI transformation hire.

We’re starting to refer to this archetype as an “AI Operator” or a “CAO” (Chief Automation Officer). Supreme Leader of Tech-Enabled Productivity is another way to put it, but maybe not the most... inviting.

Anyway, their job is this:

The guy we hired for this is so great… we now have a whole team of AI-first employees. But remember, the AI Operator is not:

…Though they may be great at all those things. The AI Operator is:

Think: process killer + capability expander + margin enhancer.

They’re not the ones asking: “How can we use AI?” They’re the technologically deranged ones shouting stuff like this from the rooftops:

If someone at your company is saying things like this, and they’re serious about it, you should do everything in your power to let them.

Here’s why (now more than ever)…

Every C-suite exec knows they need to “implement AI.”

Heck, they’re the ones seeing the most time-saving benefits from it in their workflows.

But a lot of their workflows just aren’t the same as their team’s workflows. And when it comes to driving efficiencies there, most CEOs don’t have the first clue where to start, especially in SMB land.

So what happens quite often now is something like this:

If this resonates, the window to fix it is open right now. But it won’t stay open forever.

The days when AI was “nice to have” are already far in the rearview mirror. Jurassicly far.

But many SMBs have barely implemented AI at all because no one owns it. It just gets tossed around like a hot potato.

The real alpha is realizing that it all comes back to finding the responsible operator who will strategically apply these tools across the business.

Silos mean nothing to AI Operators. For them, it’s all about problem solving, and they’re happy to touch any part of the business: Sales, Operations, Marketing, HR / Admin…

The key: Our team knows that this is meant to empower them. The goal is to upgrade our people, offloading menial processes so they can focus on moving the needle.

Catnip for an AI Operator: “I’m overwhelmed! We need to hire someone else to take some of this off my plate.”

Most business owners are still using Cretaceous Era hiring practices (145-66 million years ago).

Evolve or become extinct.

You probably won’t easily find AI Operators on resumes. “3-5 years AI experience required” or "Bachelor's in AI required” isn’t it.

These people exist outside the basic level of visibility. You’ll find them on spaces like X (Twitter). You might even find some on LinkedIn (but less likely). Search “build in public AI,” “automation,” “n8n,” or “Claude workflows.” Look for demos. Scan for shipped work.

Often, they don’t call themselves anything like an “AI Operator.” Maybe they’re a Chief of Staff, or an operations junkie. But AI problem-solving is what they’re functionally interested in.

Avoid: “AI enthusiasts” with nothing to show for it.

And when you find a gem, DM them. But do not say “We have a role open.” Instead, try this: “I saw what you built. Holy canolli, that is sick. Want to do that inside a real business?”

At Contrarian Thinking, we hire based on proof. Our President, Marc, is now literally asking every new candidate, regardless of their role, what they’re currently building with AI.

It doesn’t need to be some massive project, just show thoughtful intention.

(By the way, here are the 4 top rules from our Hiring Playbook)

That’s how we empower our current talent to find more great talent with less exec time wasted.

Once we find an AI builder, we run them through an evaluation in Breezy. The flow might look like this:

We take note of their speed, communication, and “ease of shipping.” If someone can’t ship easily under light pressure, they won’t produce inside our business.

Most companies make the same mistake. They hire someone like this… then tether them to one department. NO. Bad. F-minus. Zero points.

The AI Operator should focus on specific projects at a given time, but work across departmental lines to:

Recently, we did. And it was (potentially) one of the most transformative, highest ROI things we’ve ever done because of the “awakening” across the team.

Step 1 is getting your leader. This needs to be the AI Operator (or whoever is most genuinely interested in AI at your company.)

They should also plan a fun, brief presentation for the beginning of the hackathon, to get everyone on the same page and seeing the larger picture. Ours was all about the history of AI.

In advance, the leader should send a message with the game plan to the team so everyone knows what to expect coming in.

Then, rock and roll.

The goal isn’t perfection but rather seeing what’s possible in 4 hours and identifying which ideas deserve development.

Oh, and it helps if your hackathon leader has a nerdy sense of humor.

Here’s a nice blurry photo of our hackathon crew in action:

See, a lot of founders are missing the point of tools like Claude.

Don’t think about who you can replace with it. Use it to create more builders in your org. Give your team ways to make their job easier, more productive, and more fun.

If you’re the entrepreneur, create intrapreneurs in your business.

The next decade’s winners will be the businesses that:

That’s how you eventually 10x productivity without burning people out.

That’s how you make work more fun.

That’s how small businesses punch way above their weight.

So steal this.

Name your CAO. Run the hackathon. See what breaks. See what surprises you.

Just 1 hire and 4 hours are enough to change how your business does business forever.

-Team Contrarian

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