Finding Clients in the Age of AI

In the past couple of days I’ve had conversations with two different friends, both contractors, about the impact of AI on their ability to find and keep clients. One says that AI has decimated their ability to find steady contract work. They other says it’s created opportunities for them to increase the demand for their services.

I haven’t seen a noticeable impact on my own work. Probably because I’ve only ever had a very small number of clients who were already unsteady sources of contracts. Though would any of them actually tell me if the reason they decided not to give me a project is because of AI? Doubtful.

My friend for whom this all seems to be working out is Christopher Moravec. He has positioned himself as a thought leader on the responsible use of AI in software development. He attributes his current success to this positioning.

It seems clear to me that AI is resulting in more-or-less cold channels for client acquisition being flooded. That would include email, LinkedIn, Upwork, etc.

It’s plausible that this means anyone who can actually prove they are expending human effort on starting a business relationship will have an advantage over those who are only pretending to. For example shooting a short personalized video and including it with a response to a job posting.

My problem is that I wasn’t doing cold outreach before everything started changing, so I don’t expect I’ll start now, regardless of what new opportunities present themselves.