Photos by Empiria Studios
Gail Fraser is keeping small businesses human, with an Anti-AI ethos that you shouldn’t ignore. She brings magic and insights into the operational processes that many businesses and non-profits need to stay sane without the ick and impact of AI.
Tell us a little bit about yourself!
I’m your anti-AI systems girlie and operations fairy godmother! Basically, I save you time through systems & automation so you can actually do the shit you love (and like, started your business for). I’m also a rampant community builder, self-proclaimed networking queen of the Twin Cities, friendship matchmaker, and host of the podcast Where’s Your Humanity, where I yap with cool af business owners about how we prioritize community & humanity in a business space that’s increasingly individualistic and overrun by chatbots (ew).
What is your background, and how did you find your way to starting an operations business?
I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, and my career path reflects that. I had 8 careers in 8 years – from professional chef, to server, to clinic assistant, to research project manager, to campus recruiting – before I realized the throughline was that I was really good at pissing my employers off by saying “but what if we didn’t do this the way ‘we’ve always done it,’ and actually make it efficient and manageable?” and landing in operations full time. I actually started Worksimple after one of the wedding vendors I met with said “I NEED THAT,” after I told her what I did for a living.
Describe your business and your favorite types of projects/people to work on.
My favorite projects are the ones where a relatively established wedding vendor who’s been cobbling their systems together for YEARS comes to me with their chaos. I love chaos. Because then I get to turn how they work manually into a process that’s repeatable and sustainable – whether that’s building out their docs and workflows in Dubsado or Honeybook, or helping them realize that yes, they actually do need a project manager even if they’re a solopreneur (we need someone to manage us, okay??). So I talk a lot of people into changing their life with ClickUp too.
What is your stance on AI, and how do you see it shaping the wedding and small creative business industry?
I’ve spoken at multiple events this year where literally every other speaker was like “here’s how you can use AI in your creative business!!” and it gives me the ICK for a lot of reasons.
Obviously for me, the environmental strain of AI data centers is a big deterrent for me – like, there’s no way for me to justify an industry that literally makes entire communities unlivable, just so I can have a tool that writes mid instagram captions. And the “amazing benefits” to society that AI founders claim seem to be blowing smoke.
But from an industry perspective, the majority of couples and creative clients want AI nowhere near the work they are paying you for. I’ve already seen wedding professionals who’ve gotten business by being vocally anti-AI, because that’s exactly what clients are looking for right now.
While clients may be using AI as a free tool to help them plan their wedding, if they are paying for your work they want you to be the one doing it. I foresee AI clauses on websites and contracts becoming increasingly important for all creatives.
What do you wish more creative/wedding businesses knew about using AI as it relates to sustainability?
Data centers and machine learning have been around pretty much as long as the internet has. But AI and AI data centers are MUCH bigger, which requires a lot more power and water.
A data center is basically a big, windowless, warehouse filled with floor to ceiling computers that are running all day, every day. So imagine your laptop when it gets hot, but times thousands. So they get HOT hot (which heats up the surrounding atmosphere up to like 5-15 degrees on average).
And to cool it, they use what’s called “evaporative cooling” which is basically a fancy word for spraying water into the warehouse like the veggie mister at the grocery store.
To do so, AI data centers can use up to 8 olympic swimming pools of purified drinking water per day. And they basically recycle that water through their system until it comes back out as sludge. So it’s not getting returned to the groundwater sources like in a lot of other water-heavy industries.
We will likely see mass migration due to water shortages in our lifetime, in large part due to the rapid and unregulated data center construction happening right now – so anything we can do to reduce the impact of that is worth fighting for.
What are some behind-the-scenes sustainable practices that you do with your business and personally?
Ooh! I got a backyard compost this year, and I’m super excited about it because my neighborhood in St Paul doesn’t offer city compost. I also adopted a drain this year at the State Fair, so I do my part in helping reduce pollution into our waterways. Beyond that, over 90% of my closet is thrifted, I keep an amazing drought-resistant pollinator garden, and I try to buy local whenever possible!
What are some things that are inspiring you right now? Both online and in-person.
Honestly, my podcast, Where’s Your Humanity, has been bringing me life lately. I started it in July because I was so tired of seeing all the “OMG AI!! 😍” discourse online and at conferences this year and I felt like I was the only one being like “your clients don’t want this.”
So I did the most high-effort way of having conversations with business owners who prioritized people, community, and humanity in their businesses, which is start a podcast.
But I’ve gotten to meet the coolest people, and have the most life-giving conversations, and get to have and revisit these conversations regularly.
Offline, I am always so inspired by my clients, friends, and local creative & wedding communities. I have an extremely high success rate as a friend matchmaker, and literally nothing brings me more joy than two people I think should be friends, becoming friends because I forced them to hang out.
So, community, on and offline are my biggest north stars in and outside of business. How cool is it that we get to have each other? I’m going to protect that fiercely every time.
Discover more about WorkSimple on Instagram and Threads and working with Gail on her website.
Check out the Where’s Your Humanity podcast on Apple and follow along here.
