The Old Story About AI Is Already Dead episode artwork

EPISODE · May 5, 2026 · 5 MIN

The Old Story About AI Is Already Dead

from the johnny renaissance files · host John Ashworth

I had a conversation recently with one of the leading website providers in death care.He told me they’re doing four months worth of platform development in two weeks. Directly because of AI.Let that sink in.Four months. Two weeks.That’s a signal. And if you’re a funeral home owner and you’re not picking up on it yet, this post is for you.Your website was never just a website.When I first got to Frasier Consultants, I called it what it actually was — online real estate. Not a brochure. Not a digital business card. Real estate. Something you own, something you build equity in, something that works for you when you’re not in the room.That framing was true then. It’s more true now. Because everything that platform touches — your marketing, your lead generation, your preneed program, your ability to connect with families before a death call ever comes in — all of it runs through that digital foundation. And the ground beneath it is shifting fast.The fear narrative is a distraction.The media has one gear when it comes to AI: fear. AI is taking jobs. AI is replacing people. AI is the end of everything.Some of that will prove true in some corners. I won’t pretend otherwise.But the fuller story…the one the reports are actually telling, is that AI is going to create more opportunity than it destroys. More jobs. More leverage. More ways to build something that actually scales and produced more growth. In your business. Inside your career. And in the economy itself. I mean that’s already happening.The funeral homes paying attention right now are going to have an enormous advantage over the ones who waited for permission to act.The danger isn’t the technology. It’s the wrong partner.Here’s where I want to slow down, because this is important.There are a lot of people selling AI solutions right now. Some of them know what they’re doing. Many of them don’t. The space is full of noise, and making the wrong call here doesn’t just cost you money, it costs you time, it costs you momentum, and it can genuinely set your operation backwards.You need someone who understands the death care profession. Who understands preneed. Who understands what it actually takes to drive growth inside a funeral home and build the kind of systems that produce consistent results.Not a generalist with a deck. A partner with context and a track record.What I’m seeing in the field.Some of the accounts I’ve taken on over the last year and a half, two years — their growth has been real. The work has been real. And a big part of that growth has come from building the right technology foundation underneath everything else.Lead generation systems. Marketing infrastructure. Appointment setting. Preneed program development. All of it connected. All of it working together.That’s what’s available to you right now. That’s what’s possible.But you have to start somewhere.The move.If you’re sitting on this and thinking about it, knowing you need to do something, just not sure what the next step looks like, that’s exactly the conversation I want to have with you.Send me a DM over on LinkedIn. And I’ll keep dropping content here on the ash flash as it develops.More podcasts are coming on this subject soon. This one was just the opening shot.Don’t wait on this.-Johnny Renaissancetheashflash.com#PreNeed #FuneralHome #DeathCare #FuneralIndustry #CommandPreneedOps This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theashflash.substack.com/subscribe

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The Old Story About AI Is Already Dead

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This episode is 5 minutes long.

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This episode was published on May 5, 2026.

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I had a conversation recently with one of the leading website providers in death care.He told me they’re doing four months worth of platform development in two weeks. Directly because of AI.Let that sink in.Four months. Two weeks.That’s a signal....

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