Multiplayer AI
If you’re not making the leap to Multiplayer AI, you’re already falling behind.
I’m sitting in the Delta lounge at O’Hare.
I’m early for my flight, which is exactly how I like it after a meeting like this.
I was with 50 business owners…most of them running seven and eight figure companies.
They are not AI skeptics.
These are not people ignoring what’s happening.
Three months ago, a lot of them would have looked like they were on the “leading edge” of AI for small business.
We were going around the room sharing what we were doing with AI.
And honestly… I didn’t think our firm was especially advanced.
Then I described what we’ve built.
We call it our “FIRM^AI” system.
Eyes got wide.
One owner said, “I thought we were ahead. Now I feel way behind… I don’t even know how to do what you just described.”
I had some version of that conversation five times.
So I decided to write this.
Because if you’re a professional services firm owner, this is the race you’re in now.
Not a race to “use AI.”
Everyone uses AI.
It’s a race to become faster and more effective… and more human at the same time.
The shift the leaders already made
Here’s the simplest way I can say it:
The market hasn’t moved yet.
But the leaders have.
The difference is not whether your team uses AI.
The difference is whether your firm has built AI into shared knowledge and shared workflows… or whether it’s still stuck in private chats.
If AI only lives in private chat windows on each employee’s laptop, your firm isn’t getting an advantage.
Your people are getting a trick.
That gives you linear gains.
And it creates random quality.
Because every person is playing their own game.
Their own prompts.
Their own context.
Their own “system.”
And it keeps you stuck in the same place you’ve been stuck for years:
You still act like the human traffic cop.
The one connecting people, systems, decisions, and context.
Meanwhile… the firms that turn AI into shared systems are compounding…FAST.
And once compounding starts, catch-up gets ugly.
What you’re actually racing for
This isn’t just about productivity.
Productivity matters.
But the real risk is bigger:
If your firm doesn’t make this jump, you lose the true advantage of AI.
Which is not “more output.”
It’s freeing up your people to do what humans do best:
Leadership.
Creativity.
Insight.
Experience.
Imagination.
The stuff that creates new client value.
And if you stop creating value at the pace the market demands…
you lose.
What Multiplayer AI looks like in the real world
Multiplayer AI is when your firm has created shared intelligence between the human team and the AI team.
It looks like:
Company knowledge is shared and findable (and organized).
Workflows are named and owned.
AI outputs land in real systems (not just chat windows).
Humans keep control points for judgment and commitments.
Learning compounds across the whole team.
This is when AI stops being a personal productivity hack and starts being part of how the firm runs.
And once you’ve built it, you start doing things you used to say “no” to… because they weren’t worth the time.
Here are a few examples from our own business.
Example 1: “We would have said no”
Last week a client asked for help finding speaking engagements.
In the past, we probably would have said no.
Not because it wasn’t valuable.
But because it’s the kind of request that quietly eats days.
So instead, we asked our internal speaking-gig research agent (one we built to find me stages) to run a search for the client.
In less than 24 hours, we had a list of ~150 target events.
Client was thrilled.
Value created where we simply could not have created it before.
Example 2: “Hours became 30 minutes”
I have an agent that analyzes the performance of our ad campaigns weekly.
It recommends which ads to kill.
Which to replicate.
It creates the new ads.
It creates the new images.
Then it presents everything to me for approval.
Because human-in-the-loop at the right spot matters.
Once I say “approved,” it pushes the updated ads to Meta.
No jockeying across 5 spreadsheets and our CRM…
No mindless point-click-upload-copy-paste…
Hours of manual work became 30 minutes.
Example 3: Website + SEO + AEO in a day
We redesigned and relaunched our website fully SEO and AEO optimized in a day.
And we didn’t stop there.
We have a bi-weekly, data-driven SEO/AEO update rhythm run by an agent and supervised by a team member.
Example 4: Ops visibility without app-switching
Our ops team is building tools so they stop needing to switch between four different tools to get up-to-the-minute status on client projects.
They just ask.
Or they get a proactive update sent to them.
And on and on.
This is what “the leaders” have done.
Not because they bought better tools…
But because they built a company capability.
The unsexy part nobody wants to talk about
The cool stuff I just described comes last.
The first step is slowing down to speed up.
Because most of us have a shared drive or server that looks like Grandma’s junk drawer (she had everything in there…).
You know the five versions of the “FINAL-FINAL” file…
You have to get organized enough for AI to actually work.
You need a clear source of truth.
Documented workflows.
Ownership.
And control points.
That’s the part nobody brags about on LinkedIn.
But it’s the part that makes all the “magic” possible.
The first step (do this before you buy another tool)
Pick one recurring workflow that matters and make it multiplayer.
Here’s the checklist:
Name the workflow.
Assign an owner.
Define the output (what “done” means).
Define the feedback loop (how it gets better).
Then build the AI path around that.
Not “prompts.”
A workflow.
With ownership.
That compounds.
If the leaders in your space are making the jump, and you’re not…
you’re already behind.
And you won’t catch up by “using AI more.”
You catch up by turning AI into a company capability.
Become faster and more effective.
And at the same time, become more human.
Steve “make it multiplayer” Gordon
P.S. I’ve had so many questions about this that I’m going to help a few firms who are already using AI—but haven’t made the leap to Multiplayer AI—build their roadmap. If you want to be one of them, comment to this post and tell me what you’re doing with AI today, and where you want to go next.