In the 1890s, factories across New England replaced their steam engines with electric motors and waited for the productivity gains to follow. For thirty years, almost nothing changed. It wasn’t until the 1920s – when factories were torn down and rebuilt from scratch, with assembly lines and individual motors at each piece of equipment – that electrification finally delivered on its promise.

A recent piece from venture capital firm a16z posed the question: “AI just made every individual 10x more productive. No company became 10x more valuable as a result. Where did the productivity go?”

The answer, as the authors frame it: we swapped the motor. We didn’t redesign the factory.

In Episode 4 of The AI Edit, Samantha McLean applies that principle to one of a real estate agent’s most familiar processes – the headshot.

The deeper point is not about headshots. It’s about the question that precedes every task: “What could AI do here?” Not as an afterthought, but before the traditional process begins. The AI First Formula, as Sam teaches it, starts there – and the answer often reveals that the entire process was worth rethinking.

Key takeaways:

  • The productivity paradox: doing the same thing faster with AI is valuable, but it’s not transformational. The real gains come from rethinking the process entirely.
  • The AI First Formula starts with one question – “What could AI do here?” – asked before bolting AI onto the traditional approach.
  • When the constraints of time and cost are removed, creativity follows. The ability to iterate endlessly changes the relationship with the output.
  • The lesson extends well beyond headshots to every process in a real estate business.

Sam built a free AI headshot generator at headshots.eliteagent.com – 12 styles across Professional, On Site, and Fun categories.

The AI Edit is a weekly series of short clips from the AI First Agent Accelerator. New episodes weekly.

Want your team to think this way? Book Samantha to speak or train your team: samanthamclean.com.

Want the full AI First Formula? Visit aiagentcourse.com.