Do you remember what it was like for a small business back in 2012? If a potential customer couldn’t find you on Google, you might as well have been invisible. A business without a website was a business leaving money on the table.

Well, here we are in 2025, and I’m having the biggest déjà vu moment of my career.

Today, not having an AI strategy is exactly like not having a website in 2012. It’s the new digital divide, and I see too many incredible Canadian businesses standing on the wrong side of it.

That urgent need to bridge a critical technology gap for the people who form the backbone of our communities—that’s why I started Canadian AI Guy. This is the story of why I’m here, and more importantly, how I can help.

The Déjà Vu Moment: From Small-Town Alberta to the AI Boom

My wife and I moved to Bonnyville, a close-knit small town in northern Alberta, back in 2012. Before that, we’d spent years in the Vancouver market, running e-commerce stores and building websites. We knew the rule: if you weren’t online, ya didn’t exist.

But in rural Alberta, it was a different story. You couldn’t just Google the best place for shoes; you had to ask so-and-so, who knew a guy, who heard about a place. I saw a massive gap.

So, in 2015, we teamed up with a friend and combined our skills to launch Octopus Creative. I handled websites, my wife did branding and design, and our friend managed social media. We started educating the local market in the Lakeland region (Bonnyville, Cold Lake & St. Paul Alberta), getting businesses online and building some beautiful sites that still look great today.

Fast forward a decade. The technology has changed, but the fundamental challenge has not.

A Tipping Point Named ChatGPT

I’d been following generative AI for years, but when ChatGPT went mainstream in November 2022, I knew it was a seismic shift. This wasn’t just a new tool; it was an industrial revolution at hyperspeed. Think jumping from a horse and buggy to a Tesla Cybertruck in a few days instead of 150 years.

There’s always pushback on this stuff. Remember how Napster was going to kill the music industry, but instead spawned Spotify and Apple Music? Or how working from home was “unprofessional” pre-COVID, but is now completely normal? Things that seem disruptive at first eventually become standard. AI is normalizing in the corporate world at a rapid pace.

I started talking about it, but the message was getting lost. The hype was deafening, the advice was generic, and the practical guidance for Canadian businesses just wasn’t there.

It was Bonnyville all over again. That’s when we decided to create a new, separate brand with a singular focus: Canadian AI Guy.

The Mission: Empowering Canada’s Community Builders

My passion has always been working with organizations that have the greatest impact on local economies: the Chambers of Commerce, boards of trade, BIAs, and DMOs. These are the multipliers—the community champions who work tirelessly to support their members, often with a budget stretched thinner than a cheap elastic.

My goal isn’t to sell complex systems. It’s to give you a playbook that works. You should be able to attend a chamber workshop, spend a few bucks, get a lunch out of it, and walk away with a toolkit you can actually use. I provide lighter versions of my own heavy-duty systems that are easy to implement and goal-focused.

The mission is to demystify AI for the masses and empower over 10,000 Canadian businesses in the next five years.

A Playbook Born from a Pain You Know All Too Well

Here’s the part that doesn’t usually make it onto an “About Us” page. For years, my biggest and most expensive bottleneck wasn’t a lack of ideas; it was the struggle to find copywriters who could consistently capture our strategic vision.

The Playbook Was Perfect. The Execution Wasn’t.

My process was exhaustive. I’d personally run three to five discovery sessions with each client, sometimes two to three hours a piece. The result was a “Solutions Presentation”—a comprehensive playbook that mapped out everything: SEO keywords, target avatars, core problems, brand voice, copywriting frameworks, even suggested ad copy. The strategy was airtight.

Then, I’d hand that perfect playbook off to a professional writer. And 95% of the time, the output just missed the mark. The copy that came back lacked the heart and soul I knew was needed. External firms were almost always late, forcing me to work endless nights correcting issues while still paying expensive invoices. I’m picky, I want to over-deliver, and I ended up taking on most of the writing myself.

The cost of this bottleneck was immense: hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted expenses and countless lost hours with my family and friends.

My “Aha!” Moment

My breakthrough came through our partnership with Digital Marketer. I immersed myself in their copywriting frameworks, learning how to hit on the psyche of an audience. A lightbulb went off: what if I could teach these proven systems to an AI?

I started programming my system prompts with those frameworks, feeding the AI my best writing, my brand voice, my logic. The first time it gave me back a piece of copy that sounded exactly like me—in seconds—I knew everything had changed. It was creepy as hell, but it worked insanely well.

I had solved my biggest business problem. I had built the perfect creative assistant.

That personal breakthrough is the exact system I now teach. I don’t just give you prompts; I teach you how to talk to AI and train it on your brand. It’s a human-in-the-loop process, but it eliminates that creative bottleneck for good. This isn’t about replacing humans; it’s about amplifying your authentic voice and finally achieving consistency.

Your Local Guide in a Global Tech Storm

I’m a Canadian business owner who understands our unique market. I’m not just teaching theories; I’m teaching actual things that work right now, based on thousands of hours of real-world testing.

AI has now supercharged my own process. Those 10-15 hours of discovery sessions? They’re now a hyper-focused 2-3 hour average. The 30-60 hours of post-research we used to do for each client? A highly trained AI, filled with our insights, now helps fill in the blanks and craft proper solutions following my frameworks. It takes up less of everyone’s time, which means we can stretch your dollars further and deliver more value.

Canadian AI Guy’s Pro Tip: The biggest mistake people make is treating AI like a search engine. Treat it like a new employee. Before you give it a task, give it a job description. Try starting your next conversation with a “Persona Prompt” like this:

"Act as my expert marketing assistant for the [Your Town] Chamber of Commerce. You are witty, encouraging, and an expert in writing for small business owners. Your goal is to help me create content that is practical and valuable for our members. Do you understand?"

By giving the AI a role, a tone, and a goal before you ask it to write something, you’ll get dramatically better results. You’ve given it a brain.

For those feeling overwhelmed, a formal AI Policy is a crucial step, aligning your team’s use of AI with your insurance and legal obligations. It lets you show up to a conversation with legal counsel already prepared. If you’re not sure where to start, I can help.

That whole cycle—the exhaustive discoveries, the off-brand copy, the missed deadlines, and the sleepless nights—is the exact pain I’m on a mission to help you skip entirely. The systems I’ve built are the shortcut I wish I’d had a decade ago.

Let’s Get to Work, Eh?

I’m incredibly excited to officially launch The Canadian AI Guy. This is a continuation of a mission that started over a decade ago: to ensure every business has the tools and knowledge it needs to thrive.

I look forward to hearing your stories and seeing your successes. Even if you don’t buy anything from me, I’m cool with that. I just want to see you take action and get results.

If you have questions, need help implementing these systems, or want a presentation for your organization, please reach out. We can do it with you, or we can do it for you. The first step is just a conversation.

Let’s give’r.

People Also Ask

1. Who is The Canadian AI Guy for?

The Canadian AI Guy is primarily for Canadian community-builders like Chambers of Commerce, BIAs, DMOs, and economic development organizations, as well as the small and medium-sized businesses they represent. The focus is on practical, real-world application, not just theory.

2. What kind of AI training do you offer?

We offer a range of training, from introductory “Lunch & Learn” sessions and engaging keynotes to in-depth, hands-on half-day workshops. We also provide “done-with-you” and “done-for-you” consulting for organizations that need help developing AI strategies, policies, and internal systems.

3. Is this just for Chambers of Commerce?

While we specialize in helping membership-based organizations, the frameworks we teach are universal. They are designed for any small business owner, non-profit, or marketing team in Canada looking to use AI to save time and improve their results.

4. Why is having an AI strategy so important right now?

Without a clear strategy, using AI is just a neat party trick. A strategy ensures you’re using AI to solve real business problems, improve efficiency, and stay competitive. In the near future, businesses using AI effectively will have a massive advantage over those who don’t.

5. How can I get started if I feel completely overwhelmed by AI?

The best first step is to start small with a high-impact problem. Don’t try to automate everything at once. Begin by attending an introductory webinar or booking a simple Lunch & Learn for your team. The goal is to build confidence with a few quick wins.