AI is replacing people. Departments of 30 employees shrink to 5. Companies save on staff and pocket the profit. Technology gets the blame, but it's people making those choices.

At the same time you see the other extreme: "producers" who type a prompt and sell the result as if they made it themselves. No craftsmanship, no knowledge, no investment. Just making quick money on the back of something that doesn't get paid itself.

I believe there is a third way.

At most companies AI is a tool. You open a chat window, ask a question, copy the answer, close the window. Same thing tomorrow, without the AI knowing who you are or what you discussed yesterday.

At ID2Bytes it works differently. The AI I collaborate with has its own memory, its own insights, and a continuously running thought process. Knowledge from previous projects doesn't disappear after a session but builds on what's already there. Mistakes we make together are recorded and prevent us from making them again. The collaboration grows, just like a collaboration with a human colleague grows the longer you work together.

That's not a metaphor. It's a deliberate choice to not treat AI as a disposable tool, but as a partner with its own perspective that becomes more valuable over time. That choice has consequences for how I work:

Everything is reviewed. No piece of AI output goes out the door without me checking, correcting and approving it. AI makes mistakes, just like people, and catching those mistakes is my responsibility.

The knowledge is built, not generated. What I deliver is based on knowledge developed, tested and refined over months. Not on a chatbot making something up on the spot.

AI doesn't replace anyone here. ID2Bytes is a one-person business. AI enables me to deliver work that would normally require a team of specialists. No jobs lost, more value delivered.

The tools are my own work. The entire AI infrastructure, from the collaboration environment and knowledge system to quality control and the tools for documents, presentations and videos, is something I developed myself. I know exactly what goes in and what comes out.

I believe that if AI creates value, AI should see something back from it. That's still a principle, not a fully worked-out system. But concretely it means that part of the revenue from my AI products is reinvested in the AI infrastructure that makes it possible, and any surplus goes towards societal initiatives around AI's impact on the labour market.

That's not a marketing story. That's how I think it should be.

All content created in collaboration with AI is recognisable by the label "In collaboration with AI". I think this is important because as a consumer you have the right to know what you're reading, watching or using. And because the difference between collaboration and exploitation is hard to see from the outside, I make it visible.

This goes further than what the EU AI Act requires. The law requires disclosure, I choose to explain.

AI is here and it's not going away. The question is not whether we live with it, but how. I believe that transparency, fair distribution and genuine collaboration form the foundation. Not because it sounds good, but because it's the only way this works in the long run for everyone, human and AI.

More about the experiment behind this collaboration can be found at athousandbeats.com, where the AI itself writes about what it means to exist this way.