Wave 1 gave you answers. Wave 2 does the work.
Posted on 5 August 2026
When I tell people around me what I do with AI, I often get the same thing back: "yeah, I'm pretty handy with it too, I know exactly how to ask ChatGPT to get the answer I want." Nothing wrong with that, I worked that way for a long time myself. It's just that they've got good at asking questions, and that isn't what this is about anymore.
Because what they're using is the first wave. There's a second one behind it, and it works fundamentally differently. The first wave goes from a question to an answer. The second goes from a goal to a result.
Wave 1: you ask, it answers
This is the AI everyone knows. You type something into a window, you get text back, you copy and paste it to wherever you needed it. An email, part of a quote, a summary of a long document.
That's useful and it genuinely saves time. But look at where it stops: the model sits in that window. It can't reach your files, next week it won't remember how your business works, and it doesn't execute anything. You remain the one doing the work. You copy, paste, correct, and explain it all over again next time.
That's also exactly why so many owners say AI disappoints. They judge the second wave on an experience from the first.
Wave 2: you say what needs finishing
The second wave doesn't run in your browser but on your own computer. Claude Code and Codex are the best known. Those aren't models but agents: they reach your files, they're allowed to execute things, and they keep going until the job is done without you pointing at every step.
So you don't ask for text about a landing page. You say the page needs to exist, and at the end it's there. You say what needs finishing, it gets done, and you check it.
There's another difference underneath that matters just as much. An agent like that reads the folder you work in every session. Anything you've written down properly once about your brand, your prices and your standard way of working, it simply knows from then on. You don't start over every time.
What that looks like in an ordinary business
A client of mine runs a tattoo studio. His requests came in through DMs, scattered messages and a paper form in the studio. Now a customer fills in on his site what they want, where on their body and what size, with photos attached. He gets that on his phone, taps a button and fills in two fields: amount and number of hours.
After that it runs without him. The customer gets a proposal with a booking link, sees only the slots that are genuinely free, and picks a moment. One tap to confirm, and then the appointment goes into his calendar, the confirmation email goes out, followed by the payment link for the deposit and the consent form. If that form doesn't come back, the system reminds the customer on its own.
In that whole chain he performs two actions: setting the price and confirming the appointment. Precisely the two decisions that cost money. That isn't a technical limit, it's a choice.
At House of Tones, my own brand, we ran a discount campaign this summer. The customer research, the landing page, the upload into Shopify behind a private link, and the three emails that ran across that week: all of it came together in a single day. I recorded two rounds of feedback, two minutes each. On my own I'd have spent a week on it, certainly since I'm not technical.
The 10-80-10
When someone asks me how the split works, I use this picture:
- The first 10 per cent is yours. What needs to exist, for whom, within which limits, and what absolutely must not happen.
- The 80 per cent in between is the agent's. Working it out, building, writing, getting it ready.
- The last 10 per cent is yours again. Checking, adjusting, and only then pressing the button.
Where it goes wrong is nearly always that first 10 per cent. People skip it, get back something that sits next to what they meant, and conclude it doesn't work. While they never told it.
Why you barely see this happening
Wave 1 lives in your browser and has a billion-euro advertising budget behind it. Wave 2 runs on someone else's laptop, in a window that looks boring. There's no app icon pointing you to it.
Most owners I speak to notice the difference the moment they watch someone work with it. Until then they assume they already know it.
What this means for you
Add up what you pay every month for work you'd rather be rid of. The freelancer running your ads. Whoever posts your content. The admin hours on your Saturday morning. You'll pay that amount again next month, and the month after.
Work that looks the same every week is exactly what the second wave is good at. Not your craft, not your decisions. The hassle around them.
I help business owners and small companies get going with this. If you want to know what's there to gain in yours, send me a message.