Surf's Up: ExitStrategy.World Jumping on the AI Megawave

Following up on the post-Easter week announcements here at ESW, I wanted to use this rainy Sunday afternoon in the Midwest to expound on a few themes in what will be our first ESW 'think piece' or 'thought leadership' article.

ABOVE IMAGE: Created using Open AI

Having spent considerable hours over the past several weeks researching and attending AI structures webinars and watching Air.ai tutorial videos about using this powerful AI tool for outreach, we wanted to mention team goals for the coming weeks. Including the long-awaited debut of the ExitStrategy.World webcast on X, YouTube and Rumble.

Readers who've been with us almost from the start when we switched over from Ghost.io for hosting to Patreon around New Year 2024 may have noticed that we have been using AI art work to illustrate our articles. No more wasting time looking for a non-copywrite(d) images! For more specific locations such as Alexandria or Hurghada in the Egypt/Mideast real estate overview series by our MENA Editor Ahmed, we've used iStock images. The goal of the MENA real estate series is to build SEO long tail key word content as we expect in addition to North American gringos, more clients from the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia over the coming months. But we still ask ourselves: is SEO long tail content so 2014 marketing rather than 2024?

AI is Going to Roll Over Many Industries Like a Mega-Tsunami, and the Internationalization/Offshoring Industries Won't Be Spared the Effects

With the exception of a few well-known passport by investment 'mill' firms concentrated in the United Kingdom, the internationalization and offshoring services industry remains highly bespoke and boutique in nature--this despite the barriers to entry perhaps being lower than ever before in the work anywhere age. For example, there are firms in Nigeria that seem to do brisk business assisting their countrymen in obtaining Caribbean passports that we noticed were using the looming government donation increase from $100k to $200k per individual as of June 1, 2024 for a Dominica passport to create some urgency in their X/Twitter prospects.

Nonetheless AI is not only going to impact the livelihoods of some high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and family office clients of our CEO in shaking up their industries, but also offers channels for more prompt prospect outreach in our business. You can train an AI to answer prospect FAQs and reach out to Bitcoin-owner prospects via an autodialer faster than any human agent possibly could--and the AIs don't sleep.

The Shakeup of Digital Nomad-Land and Global Online Business Owners

Our internationalization industry certainly won't be spared these sleepless effects--see this tweeted quote about what's coming from the widely followed X account @OutboundMexico:

@OutboundMexico 4:13 PM · Mar 29, 2024 28K Views

Some thoughts on the future of LATAM Bros, AI, and online work. Currently, the majority of our activity is focused on transactional law and foreign direct investment. This is not an accident.

Immigration [by gringo remote workers to Mexico] is still thriving, but we know it will soon die. In many ways, the mechanisms that fuel global geoarbitrage and prompted us to launch Outbound two years ago are in grave danger. Relying on assisting digital nomads, remote workers, and online business travel bros is a risky long-term gamble for Outbound: AI and recession will wipe them out in less than four years. We are confident of this.

Outbound has spent practically all of its income in AI-related startups, and the degree of innovation we are seeing in the industry right now is nerve-racking. Four clients with large online enterprises have already told us that their e-commerce, marketing, and copywriting businesses, which were generating millions for them just 18 months ago, are being wiped out. Not a recession-style decline, but something much worse. The market is becoming saturated with emerging B-level guys who can now accomplish considerably more with far less.

Competition is harsh. Those who are considering geoarbitrage or fleeing the Global North should do it now, while their Internet sources of income are still viable.

For those who are already in this [space], diversify into industries that are more difficult to destroy by AI: real estate, local enterprises, tourism, restaurants, and so on. The age of Internet revenues may witness one more surge with AI, only before everything goes crash. Stay safe.

AI Sales/Marketing Structures Arms Race and the Winnowing of Fat Margins

In addition to hammering digital nomads such as high-end copywriters, who've already felt the pressure from medium-term contract clients to RTO, the AIs are also going to level many white collar professions. This is especially true for already-outsourced to overseas humans medical diagnostics, high filing repetition/low margin legal practices such as debt collection lawsuit firms or cheap divorce law offices, and even some coding. The winners, at least in the first few years until the robots get Terminator-smart, will be highly skilled blue collar labor--welders, plumbers, electricians, and home renovation specialist carpenters--and boutique services to the affluent. That is, professions that involve non-outsourceable, physical work in the real world.

It's no accident for example, that X influencer/newsletter publisher @BowTiedBull has been hammering on these points in recent months urging his readers to look at the medspa industry. Or that Serge Gatari's top 'AI structures' builders have focused on medspas, to the point that there's a real risk of saturation and social media memes backlash (as many over-botoxed twentysomething GenZ gals on TikTok look older than their thirtysomething Millennial aunts and cousins). Meanwhile, it's true some individuals will feel euphoric at the early bird margins they can obtain in building 'AI structures' for fat margin businesses--like Tony Montana's crew running bills through the counter in the 'Push it to the Limit' scene from Scarface. But the competition will be nipping at their heels in very short order, as Serge Gatari frankly acknowledges.

Political Impact of AI Customer Service Bots from India and the Philippines to Main Street

From a political perspective, the AI rollout will initially impact the emerging markets, places that with their lower first world client billing margins truly cannot afford the luxury of ignoring the latest AI tools. For example, Indian and Philippines call centers--and perhaps Egyptian and Tunisian ones in the Arab world--will feel the effects with significant layoffs first. Those call centers that do survive will have to move up the customer service value chain, meaning speaking English more clearly and being empowered to actually solve problems for the customers who are calling in. LatAm call centers in places like Panama or Costa Rica due to their time zone advantage in serving the North American market may prove more AI resilient.

Then there's the besieged Cathedral of professions, what the retired British anon civil servant Substack-er Aurelien calls the the international Professional and Managerial Caste (PMC). Given that the trial lawyers bar is a key Democratic Party constituency along with low-skill government bureaucrats, these will naturally try to close ranks and desperately try to save their professional privileges via AI regulation, first at the blue state legislative, and later at the federal level. But the Deplorables, the sons of union men who worked the jobs that President Obama infamously remarked aren't coming back, will have their hour of revenge on their cold U.S. Civil War antagonists.

Incidentally, this short to medium term AI megatrend will benefit Latino skilled workers and Latin American immigrant remittances back to LatAm--another reason to stay bullish on Mexico and Central America. As Trump famously said, "I love Hispanics!"

In conclusion, those who know how to command armies of AIs can and will make a killing--again, in the short to medium term. Our macro point is, it's going to be a new world altogether from that of the 1970s through 2000s. Your daughter--if you raised her right--may be making eyes at the plumber, the farmer, or oil field worker over that undergrad frat guy getting a generic b-school BA.

Changing How We Post Content Here at the Patreon and Paywalled Content Update

We had initially subscribed to Spotify to link it up here, but decided that wouldn't be necessary moving forward. We will embed the Rumble videos that won't get 'cancelled' by the powers that be here, and simulstream via Streamyard on X, YouTube and Rumble. The ESW Rumble channel can also be embedded at the main ESW website via Wordpress plug-in our Web Dev Team is looking at installing later this week.

Some of you may have noticed the more in-depth articles on BTC regulation in the GCC and controversial geopolitical-oriented pieces on the Russo-NATO War in Ukraine & ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Ngorno Karabakh have been moved behind the paywall, which was lowered from $10 to $8 for a monthly membership. We will still post SEO long tail content here that will be free for all, but some lengthier regulation/migration law focused articles, as well as the geopol/think pieces will be kept behind the paywall after a free preview period.

We will still also able to link up Vimeo videos paywalled by our ESW Vimeo account for our future ESW Insiders members here at the Patreon.

Stay tuned for more AI updates as we move forward with the webcast. We know it's been a long time in coming for our friends and family, but the time for rolling out our offers and closing ESW client business is finally here.

Enjoy the much-hyped eclipse tomorrow and we'll see ya'll on the flip side!