Two weeks ago we hosted the first Disruptor Day in Santa Cruz, California. 20 Disruptors came together to share, network and build. We opened up the backend playbook of K&D and showed the room exactly how we run the business.

I did not stand up there alone. Andy Hawley walked everyone through how we run maintenance. Brian Gates broke down our commercial department. Jessica Wendt and Shantel Perez showed how our employee success team takes care of our people. And Sean Laux, our manager of technology and innovation, took the room deep into Claude Cowork and how we are putting it to work.

We spent more than two hours together in a Claude Cowork vibe coding session, and I will be honest with you. It was messy. It was clunky.

I walked the room with the twenty Disruptors while Sean and I helped everyone build out their workflows. Some were still trying to get their computers updated so Claude would even run. That is the messy middle. Others already had their connectors in place and were asking sharp, high level questions about how to optimize what they had already built.

What I realized is that every one of us is on our own path with this technology. We are sharing what we are doing, and the truth is we are all still figuring it out ourselves. But every single day, we learn, we improve, we iterate, and we move forward.

A day like that one was worth fifty to a hundred ordinary days. The pressure testing and the preparation that went into that two hour session forced all of us to get better. And the challenges, the clunky moments, the messy middle, all of it proves just how hard this work really is.

Which is exactly what I want to talk to you about, directly, the Disruptor reading this right now.

The best part was not the presentations. It was the conversations in between. Owners trading real problems, real numbers, and real fixes, out in the open, with nothing to sell.

Watch the recap. I put together a short reel from the day, about three minutes. Watch it below.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DZguG-7sUGW/

This month also marks a milestone. I just finished one full year of weekly updates on Trades Talk. Add the more than two thousand of you who now get this newsletter every month, and a Disruptors community that just hit a record ninety five members last week, and one thing is clear. Something is working, and it is time to point it in a sharper direction.

So I am making an intentional pivot. From here forward, this newsletter and my weekly Trades Talk update are going all in on artificial intelligence, workflow automation, robotics, innovation, and of course, disruption.

Here is why. I believe artificial intelligence has already changed the world more than any technology in human history, and we are still early. This is not only about GDP or value created. It is about the disruption of daily life, the way we work, the way we decide, the way we live.

There is a reason this technology is reaching every corner of the globe that touches the internet. Soon, with SpaceX and the Starlink network, more humans will be connected at the same time than ever before. Knowledge, intelligence, and access to information are being democratized faster than at any point in history.

We had the printing press. We had radio. We had television. We had the internet.

This is not Internet 2.0. This is a completely new thing, a completely new world. And I believe it is on us to navigate it together.

Technology has never changed faster than it is changing today, and tomorrow it will be faster still. A hundred years ago, human knowledge took about a century to double. Today, by most estimates, it doubles in roughly twelve hours.

That means we can no longer lean on the old sources of truth. Not the press. Not the nightly news. And if we are honest, not even what scrolls past on TikTok. What we can trust now is honest, authentic, validated, peer to peer experience sharing.

It is also why the typical “McKinsey Type" consultants are going to struggle in the future. If you ran a business a month ago, the ground has already shifted. That is not hyperbole. This is not just another smartphone or a new iPhone. This technology will change how we operate, interact, and do business, forever. So we have to share what is actually happening inside our companies.

Here is the part that worries me. Firms are springing up all over the world claiming to be experts at deploying AI into your business. Some are excellent, and their intentions are real. But many cannot deliver what a trades company actually needs, because they have never run one.

What works in a spreadsheet, or inside Claude Code, still has to survive the close at the end of the month. It still has to be deployed, delivered, and serviced on the job site. The trades are different. The “AI consultant” flying in from Palo Alto who promises to solve the hundred-year-old problems we face every single day might help. Most will fall short.

The numbers back it up. In the PwC 2026 Global CEO Survey, 56 percent of CEOs said their AI investments delivered neither higher revenue nor lower costs. Meanwhile, large retainers and multiyear contracts lock companies into a so called partner that does not even understand their business.

Last week I spent three days in Chicago at the Leanscaper People Intensive. There were far too many great stories, shares, and ideas to fit into one note, so I will not try. But two people from that room deserve a mention, because I believe they are doing some of the best work in artificial intelligence anywhere, and not only for their own teams, but for the companies and the communities they serve.

Start with Dan Martell. He is an operator, a man in the arena. He built and sold three software businesses in less than ten years, which means he knows what a company actually needs, and he understands how a real business runs on AI.

Then there is Mark Bradley. One of the best landscape operators to ever do it, who turned software founder, built LMN, and exited successfully. He created Leanscaper, pairing decades in the field with real data and insight. That is the perspective it takes to lead and innovate in AI. Not theory from the outside, but pattern earned on the inside.

And here is the whole point. You need the operator lens. And it is exactly why we have to share with each other now, through newsletters, LinkedIn, community gatherings, events, online communities, and peer groups. The trouble is, most of those rooms are not changing fast enough for what is coming. The model that worked in 2023 will not carry us to 2027. Its the classic what got you here won’t get you there. 

For the last five months, The Disruptors Advantage has gone out on the twenty first of every month. You are getting this one a few days late, and the reason is simple. I did not want to leave anything out.

The last month has given me more perspective than ever. Disruptor Day, the room in Chicago, the conversations in between. All of it pointed at the same thing. None of us are going to figure this new world out alone, and the ones who try will fall behind the ones who share. That is what this letter is for, and it is why I am about to do something I have never done.

The Disruptors and I have teamed up with NALP to host the first ever AI workshop at ELEVATE. This is not just another speaking slot. It is a half day session the day before the event officially starts. It is brand agnostic, with no session sponsors. That was intentional. I asked NALP for it, and it was my one condition on doing this. We are not getting paid, and we are not taking any profit from this event.

The reason is simple. This is the moment. We are in it. And together, we are going to succeed. There is more on the event below, but if you are reading this, I would be so grateful to see you there. Now let’s jump into a lesson that is going to help you connect the dots.

Let me come back to Dan Martell, because the lesson I want at the center of this issue is not from his book. It is something he has been teaching recently about how to actually use AI.

Dan lays it out in three levels, and once you see them you cannot unsee where you sit.

Level one is the AI assistant. You open Claude or ChatGPT and ask it to write the proposal, draft the job posting, or clean up the email. It is fast and it is useful. The catch is that you are still the worker. Every task still runs through your hands. You have simply become a quicker version of yourself.

Level two is where the leverage lives. You stop doing the task and start managing the thing that does it. You set up AI to handle a job that repeats, hand it the work, check what it produces, and sharpen it over time. You are no longer the estimator or the email writer. You are the operator who configures the system and reviews the output.

Level three is the horizon. One agent runs a team of agents, coordinating work across the business while you set direction and approve the result. Most of us are not there yet, and that is fine. The point is to know it is coming.

Here is the line from Dan that stuck with me: “Most business owners using AI today are still operating as the worker, just a faster one.”

Read that again, because it is most of us. We bolt AI onto the way we already work, we feel productive, and we miss the real prize: stopping the task altogether and running the thing that does it.

That is the leap this issue is about. From using AI to managing it. From operator of a truck to operator of a system.

For the first time, the tools to operate at level two are here, they are affordable, and they are good enough to trust with real work. That was not true even a year ago.

Which means the gap is no longer access. Everyone can open the same AI you can. The gap is whether you make the leap from using it to managing it. The owners who move from worker to operator will pull away from the ones who simply type faster.

The Buyback Rate and the Time Audit. This week, run the same exercise I ran in Watsonville.

What it is. A two part filter that tells you exactly what to take off your plate first.

How to use it. Start with your buyback rate. Take your yearly pay, divide it by the hours you work in a year, then divide that number by four. That is the hourly cost where handing a task off becomes a clear win. If your number lands at $50 an hour, anything you can pay someone less than $50 to do should not be on your calendar.

Then audit one week. Write down every task. Mark the ones that drain you in red and the ones that give you energy in green. Begin by handing off the red tasks that fall below your buyback rate.

Why it works. It turns a vague feeling of being overwhelmed into a short, specific list. You stop guessing about what to delegate and start seeing it in black and white.

I built this into a simple tool you can run in two minutes. Find it here:

One line takeaway. You cannot buy back your time until you know what an hour of it is worth.

Bobyard was founded in 2023 by Michael Ding, a Stanford trained engineer, and it has become one of the clearest examples of AI built by people who understand the work, not just the code.

Bobyard reads your plans and does the takeoff for you. Their own numbers say it automates up to 70 percent of the quantity and material takeoff, the most time consuming step in preconstruction. The company is backed by a $35 million Series A led by 8VC.

In April they launched Bobyard 2.0, a major update built to move as fast as the estimators who use it. Here is the part that fits this issue. Bobyard 2.0 added a Review Workflow that shows a confidence level on every AI output and lets the estimator decide whether to trust it or adjust it before it goes into the bid. That is Dan Martell level two in the real world. The AI does the takeoff. You review, adjust, and approve. You are not replaced. You are the operator.

Disruptor members get one month off the yearly subscription. If estimating is where your week disappears, this one is worth a serious look.

June was the busiest month in AI yet, and the trend matters for operators in the green space. The technology is quietly shifting from something you go use to something that works in the background for you.

The clearest signal came from Google. Search now runs on its faster Gemini 3.5 model, and the company launched always-on agents that monitor the web for you, watching for price changes, new listings, or availability and pinging you when something moves. Apple followed at WWDC, rebuilding Siri around generative AI, and notably leaning on Google's models to do it. The assistant race isn't about answering questions anymore. It's about systems that watch and act while you're busy running the job.

OpenAI made the same bet from a different angle, rolling out tools built for specific roles like sales, analytics, and operations instead of one general chatbot. That's the part worth watching. AI is getting packaged for specific jobs, which is exactly when it stops being a novelty and starts being useful to operators.

For a field business with crews, scheduling, estimates, and follow-ups, the takeaway isn't any one product. It's that the cost of putting AI to work on routine, time-eating tasks keeps dropping, and the tools are finally shaped like real work. The edge over the next year won't come from having AI. It'll come from deciding where to point it first.

In 1986, Kendel White bought a $100 rust bucket truck, charged a mower to a Sears credit card, and started K&D Landscaping. Forty years later, it's tracking $25 million. Hear the full father-son origin story on Part 1 & Part 2 on Trades Talk

A few rooms I will be in over the next several months. If you are going to be there, find me. I want to hear what you are building.

Lawn and Landscape Technology Conference: Scottsdale, Arizona. July 22 to 24, 2026.

The one event in our industry built entirely around technology. If you are a Disruptor, there is a discount code waiting for you in the community. Learn more here

NALP ELEVATE, presented by NALP and powered by Caterpillar: Tampa, Florida. November 8 to 11, 2026.

This one is big for me. The day before the main stage opens, I am hosting the AI Executive Stack Workshop. It is a hands on session for owners and senior leaders who want to turn AI into real executive time back on the calendar.

If you run a company between $5 million and $50 million and you are serious about AI, this is the room. Register at NALPelevate.org. Early pricing runs through June 30.

If this was useful, hit reply and tell me the one task you most need to get off your plate. I read every response, and I am collecting them for a future issue.

If you want to work through this with other owners doing the same thing, that is what the Disruptors Community is for.

No pressure. Just an open door.