u/MerisDabhi

I think AI is about to completely break the traditional UGC marketing industry.

I just watched someone use:

• Claude AI
• Higgsfield AI
• A custom “Higgsfield Content Factory” skill

to generate 100 UGC-style ads for around $900.

The crazy part wasn’t the cost.

It was how native the videos looked.

The workflow was basically:

• Claude researches TikTok/Instagram trends
• Finds viral hooks
• Creates content plans
• Higgsfield generates the UGC videos
• AI creates product shots + ad creatives
• Everything gets scheduled from one workflow

All inside one chat setup.

Traditionally, producing 100 UGC videos could cost anywhere from $30k–$100k between creators, editors, agencies, and production teams.

Now a solo founder can potentially do it with AI tools and a laptop.

Honestly feels like we’re moving from:
“AI helps marketers”

to

“AI replaces entire marketing workflows.”

Curious what everyone thinks:

Is this the future of marketing?

Or are AI-generated UGC ads going to become oversaturated really fast?

If anyone wants, I can also share the Claude + Higgsfield setup/workflow I found.

I think we’re still in the “free sample” phase of AI coding tools.

Anthropic passes OpenAI in business adoption.

Then immediately after:

• OpenAI offers free Codex access to companies switching from Claude
• Claude increases usage limits by 50% for 2 months

And honestly… that made me realize something.

People are paying like $200/month for tools that are replacing absurd amounts of work.

Not just “saving time.”

I mean genuinely replacing:

• contractors
• agencies
• engineering hours
• weeks of iteration

I know people who would probably need an extra hire if Claude Code disappeared tomorrow.

That’s kind of insane when you think about the pricing.

If you routed the same usage through APIs instead of subscriptions, most people would probably be paying WAY more.

Which makes me think these companies care about two things way more than profitability right now:

1. Adoption
2. User behavior/data

They want you fully integrated into the workflow before the real monetization phase starts.

And we’ve seen this exact pattern before:

• Uber
• Netflix
• Facebook Ads
• AWS
• DoorDash

Early phase:
“Wow this is cheap.”

Later phase:
“Oh… now I depend on it.”

I’m not even saying this in a negative way.

Honestly I think the move right now is to take advantage of it while it lasts.

Use every tool.
Experiment aggressively.
Build systems that can move between models.

Because I think getting emotionally attached to one AI company right now is probably a mistake.

The people who win long term will be the ones who can adapt fastest when the ecosystem shifts.

Curious if anyone else feels the same way or if I’m overthinking this.

A strange new kind of burnout is starting to happen in the AI era.

And I don’t think we have a name for it yet.

It’s not the old kind of burnout where you’re working 14 hours a day doing everything manually.

It’s something different.

Now the work looks like this:

You ask AI to do something.

Then you review the output.
Fix parts of it.
Rewrite prompts.
Approve it.
Retry it.
Check another tool.
Compare outputs.
Repeat.

All day long.

You’re not always “doing” the work anymore.

You’re supervising work.

And weirdly… that can feel even more mentally exhausting.

Because your brain never fully locks into one mode.

You’re constantly context switching between:

• thinking
• editing
• reviewing
• deciding
• correcting
• managing systems

A lot of builders quietly feel this right now.

AI removed some manual effort.

But it also introduced a new kind of cognitive load.

More speed.
More output.
More decisions.

And humans were never designed to make hundreds of tiny decisions every hour.

The people who thrive in the next few years probably won’t be the people who use the most AI tools.

They’ll be the people who learn:

• when to automate
• when to slow down
• when to think deeply
• and when to step away from the screen

Because productivity means nothing if your brain is constantly overloaded.

That balance is becoming a real skill now.

If you're a beginner in the AI era with $0 income right now…

What would you start?

A service-based business?

Or a digital product business?

(Like building a web app, micro SaaS, iOS app, Android app, etc.)

Here’s how I see it:

Physical products are the hardest path for beginners.

You need inventory, capital, shipping, ads, logistics…

Not easy when you’re starting from zero.

So most beginners really have 2 options:

1. Services
2. Digital products

Service business is the easiest to start.

Almost zero cost.

You can start today with just skills + internet.

That’s why freelancing works.

But there’s a catch:

You’re selling your time.

More clients = more work.

Now compare that to digital products.

A web app or micro SaaS can scale without trading hours for money.

That’s the attractive part.

But honestly?

Building is no longer the hard part.

Marketing is.

Today anyone can build almost anything with AI.

Claude, codex, Cursor, Lovable, Bolt…

You can literally build apps by chatting.

The real challenge now is:

Getting attention.

Getting users.

Getting distribution.

That’s the hard game.

And this is where I’m stuck thinking:

Should beginners focus on services first to build cash flow…

Then use that money + audience to build products later?

Right now I’m freelancing on Fiverr, so part of me thinks services are the smarter first move.

But I’d genuinely love to hear from people who already started making money online:

What did you choose first?

Services?

Or products?

And if you started an AI Automation Agency…

How did you niche down?

Title: Everyone was building workflows. Now AI does it itself.

1–2 years ago, n8n workflows were everywhere.

People were building automation agencies.

YouTubers made videos about workflows every day.

It was one of the biggest trends in AI.

Then everything changed fast.

A few months ago, everyone started building AI agents.

Now the next wave is already here:

Agentic AI.

Today many people just use Claude AI or Claude Code to:

• connect apps
• write scripts
• automate tasks
• build systems

The workflow itself became invisible.

That’s how fast AI is moving.

Every week:

• new models
• new agents
• new features
• new products

And sometimes…

one new feature from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google kills an entire startup idea overnight.

That’s why building in AI is hard.

You can’t stay stuck on old trends.

You either move with the market…

or the market moves without you.

What are you using most right now?

Claude AI, Codex, n8n, or OpenClaw?

AI is honestly becoming too overwhelming now.

Every single week theres new model, new feature, new startup, new open source project.

OpenAI, Anthropic, NVIDIA, DeepSeek...
it just never stops.

Then you open YouTube and every creator is talking about the next “crazy AI tool” or “AI agent that changes everything”.

After some time, i realized i was spending more time watching AI content then actually building anything with AI.

I was saving posts, bookmarking tools, watching videos for hours...
but not really taking action.

2 months ago i decided to change that.

Now i limit how much content i consume.
Maybe 2-3 hours for content/social media, and rest of the time i just build things.

Also stopped trying every new AI tool.

Right now i mainly use Claude (Claude Code) and Codex.
Thats enough for me.

Less confusion.
More focus.
More execution.

I honestly think alot of people are stuck in this cycle right now and dont even realize it.

One thing i been thinking about lately:

When was the last time you sat somewhere without your phone/laptop and just thinked about ideas for an hour?

We are living in crazy AI times.

Every week, big AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, NVIDIA, DeepSeek, etc. launch new models, new features, new tools.

At the same time, open-source communities are releasing insanely powerful models too.

Now people don’t even have time to test everything.
And even after consuming all this content, most still don’t know:
“How do I actually use AI in my work or business?”

It’s basically information overload.

When I open YouTube, creators like Nate Herk, Greg Isenberg, Matthew Berman, and others are posting nonstop AI videos.

Most of us are just watching videos and consuming content all day.

I was stuck in that loop 2 months ago.

Then I changed one thing:
I started scheduling my day.

Now I spend only 2–3 hours consuming content and posting on social media.
The rest of the time, I take action and build.

Honestly, it changed everything for me.

Right now I only use Claude (Claude Code) and Codex as my main AI tools.
No confusion.
No tool overload.
I connected most of my apps to Claude and just focused on execution.

One question for you:

How long do you stay away from your phone/laptop completely — fully isolated — just thinking about ideas and problems?

Big news for developers using ElevenLabs API 👀

ElevenLabs just reduced pricing for ElevenAPI and ElevenAgents for self-serve developers.

New pricing changes:

• Text to Speech → up to 55% lower
• Speech to Text → up to 45% lower
• Agents → up to 20% lower

What’s interesting is they said performance, quality, and support remain the same.

This is actually a pretty big move because voice AI products can get expensive fast when scaling. Lower API costs will probably help a lot of indie developers and startups build more AI voice apps and agents without worrying too much about usage costs.

What do you think — will this make ElevenLabs even harder to compete with?

https://preview.redd.it/487jhmatcrzg1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=d314bf0d20de2091563aaad2b7070b5eb08d8787

Big announcement: Anthropic partnering with SpaceX is actually a huge move.

A lot of people complain that Claude sometimes feels slow, hits limits, or takes longer to respond compared to other models. But honestly, a big part of that comes down to computing power and infrastructure at scale.

If this partnership helps Anthropic access stronger infrastructure and better GPU capacity through SpaceX-related systems, future Claude models become much faster, more reliable, and capable of handling way bigger workloads.

This could end up being one of the most important AI partnerships in the next few years.

But one question keeps coming to my mind:

Why isn’t Anthropic building text-to-image or text-to-video models like other AI companies?

Claude is amazing for reasoning and writing, but Anthropic seems very focused only on language models and agents.

Do you think it’s because:

• compute limitations?
• company strategy?
• safety concerns?
• or they simply don’t want to compete in generative media right now?

Curious to hear everyone’s thoughts.

Everyone's scared right now. Jobs are getting cut. AI is moving faster than anyone expected. And the permanent underclass story feels true — it confirms something people have felt for years.

But linear projections are almost always wrong during platform shifts.

Nobody predicted the internet would create 50 million small businesses. Everyone thought Walmart would eat everything. Nobody predicted smartphones would create a million independent developers. What actually happens is: costs drop, and a flood of new people with real domain knowledge flood the market.

That's what's happening with AI.

Yes, millions will lose jobs over the next 2-3 years. Those jobs aren't coming back. But a lot of those people are going to do what humans always do when forced into a corner — they're going to build something. First out of necessity. Then out of opportunity.

Here's what's different about AI:

It doesn't check your resume or your zip code. The same tool that eliminated your position gives you the ability to build the thing that replaces it. The weapon and the escape hatch are the same object.

I know "just go build" sounds tone deaf if you're stressed about rent. I'm not dismissing that.

But the reality is — starting something has never been cheaper, intelligence is basically free to access, and every industry is getting reshuffled right now.

We're going to look back at this moment like 1995. Everyone was scared. Everyone had good reason to be. The people who built anyway became the next generation of owners.

The explosion of entrepreneurship is just beginning.

Meta just dropped something seriously impressive

They introduced TRIBE v2 — an AI model that can predict how the human brain responds to videos, audio, and text.

Instead of just analyzing behavior, it simulates neural activity itself — almost like a digital version of how we process information.

The craziest part?

You can run brain experiments without needing real participants.

Want to test how people might react to an ad, a video, or an idea?
You can simulate it instantly.

This is a big shift.

AI is moving beyond just generating content…
It’s starting to understand how humans actually think.

https://preview.redd.it/1n2fwjkofayg1.png?width=1847&format=png&auto=webp&s=c0b98e9ed41f55224f062f4f5f3d932517a067de

Over the last 18 months, I feel like we’ve seen more change than the previous 10 years combined.

AI tools, models, and capabilities are evolving so fast that it’s honestly hard to keep up. Every few weeks, something new comes out that changes how people work, build, or learn.

Because of that, I’ve started thinking differently about planning.

I used to make plans for 1–2 years ahead. Now I mostly think in 60–90 day windows. Not because long-term goals don’t matter, but because things change so quickly that those plans start to feel outdated almost immediately.

What seems like a solid direction today can shift completely in a few months.

It also feels like this pace isn’t slowing down — if anything, it’s speeding up.

I’m curious how others are dealing with this.

Are you still planning long-term like before, or have you started shortening your time horizon too?

Replit is celebrating its 10th anniversary by making its Agent free for all users for 24 hours.

The free access starts on May 2 at 5:00am PST and runs for a full day.

If you’ve been curious about AI coding tools, this feels like a pretty good opportunity to actually try one without committing or paying upfront. You could probably use the time to prototype an idea, test a small project, or just see how far these tools have come.

I’m planning to give it a shot during that window — curious if anyone else here has used Replit Agent before and how it compares to other tools out there.

https://preview.redd.it/h9f89wltp4yg1.png?width=745&format=png&auto=webp&s=b858bc93de13c9df1c372fc88213bbd30f9f33c2

Replit is celebrating its 10th anniversary by making its Agent free for all users for 24 hours.

The free access starts on May 2 at 5:00am PST and runs for a full day. If you’ve been curious about AI coding tools or wanted to experiment with building something quickly, this seems like a great opportunity to try it out without any cost.

I was reading Anthropic’s piece on “Claude for creative work,” and it made me rethink the whole “AI will replace creatives” narrative.

Their framing is surprisingly grounded:

AI isn’t really about generating final creative output.
It’s about expanding how creatives work.

A few things that stood out:

• It speeds up ideation (you can explore way more directions)
• It removes a lot of repetitive/boring steps
• It lets individuals take on projects that used to need teams

The interesting shift is this:

Before AI → you had to be very selective about which ideas to pursue
After AI → you can test a lot more ideas quickly, then pick the best one

So creativity becomes less about “coming up with ideas” and more about:
taste, judgment, and decision-making

That actually feels like a higher bar, not a lower one.

Curious how others here are using AI in creative work—
Do you feel like it’s replacing parts of your process, or just accelerating them?

So I just tried something that honestly surprised me.

I used Codex with Hyperframe and gave it:

• one audio file
• one simple prompt

That’s it.

No timeline editing, no manual cuts, nothing.

In about 20 minutes, it generated a full video — with visuals, pacing, and structure that actually made sense.

I’ve used tools like Premiere Pro before, and even basic editing usually takes hours. This felt… different. Almost like skipping the entire execution layer.

It got me thinking:

Are we moving toward a world where video editing becomes more about prompting than actually editing?

I don’t think this completely replaces video editors — especially high-end creative work. But for basic to mid-level editing, this could seriously change things.

Feels like the skill is shifting from:
“how to edit” → “how to direct AI properly”

Curious what others think:
Is this overhyped, or are we actually watching the early stages of a big shift?

https://reddit.com/link/1sy8iq2/video/kuum3so0xyxg1/player

I was testing Open Claw and noticed something pretty wild.

It burned 65.9M tokens in just 2 days 🤯

And this wasn’t some massive workload — it was supposed to be a relatively small task.

Here’s the rough breakdown:

• ~55.5M tokens from one model
• ~10M from another

https://preview.redd.it/gsux7zfguvxg1.png?width=681&format=png&auto=webp&s=ec236b4a1f00bb8c4d20750e96f28de0a09e638c

• Everything else basically negligible

That got me thinking…

What if this was running on something like Opus 4.6?

You’re suddenly looking at $325 to $1,625+ in cost for just two days of usage.