CJ Chilvers is author of Principles for Newsletters, A Lesser Photographer, and The Van Halen Encyclopedia. He ghostwrites about AI for major tech companies. And he's been writing newsletters since he was 12. 

His day job is Content Strategist at an agency, giving him a front-row seat to how B2B marketing is really using this technology.

CJ believes small creators have a two-to-three-year head start on big corporations. He says it’s 1995 all over again — and curation is about to matter more than ever. He also argues that boring things like email, logins, links, and tags are the real power tools in an AI world.

We talk about why OpenAI and other LLMs are likely headed toward ads — and why CJ still sees a future where AI could stay ad-free.

We also get practical. If CJ were starting today, he explains why he’d be okay with his work getting scraped, how he’d get discovered, and the business model he’d build.

Other Key Takeaways:

• Why small creators may move faster than big companies in the AI shift 
• Why this moment feels like the early internet — and why curation wins 
• Why email still drives the highest ROI in media and B2B 
• Why many big companies are using AI to cut costs, not grow revenue 
• Why ads are likely coming to AI tools — and one way they might not 
• How CJ would launch a content business today 
• Why human trust still closes deals, not AI 
• Why humanized content beats automated personalization 
• Why you don’t need 1,000 true fans — you may only need one 
• Why trusted editors matter more as AI floods the web

If you run a media company, build products, or create content, this episode will help you see what’s changing — and what still works.

Thanks, Rob