Last updated on May 21st, 2026 at 02:33 pm
James Curran was on vacation in Italy when he got the call that would shift his entire business.
Dave Lindenbaum, his Inner Circle mentor, told him point-blank: “Dude, you should do something with AI.”
James’s first reaction? No way.
He’d spent months watching non-technical marketers crank out AI products that felt hollow. Everyone was using ChatGPT to write copy, slapping their name on it, and calling it innovation. But it didn’t sit right with him. He’d spent over 20 years building software that could handle 10,000 simultaneous users without crashing. He knew what quality looked like, and this wasn’t it.
But later that day, riding the Metro to meet his wife in Rome, he had a different thought.
For years, he’d wanted to build funnel monitoring software. Something that would sit in the background and check if your pages are up, if your buttons work, if your links are broken. He’d shelved it because hiring a dev team felt too expensive and risky.
But what if he didn’t need to hire anyone and could use AI to build it himself?
The Call That Made Him Rethink Everything
Dave Lindenbaum didn’t mince words on that call. James was in Russell Brunson’s Inner Circle, and Dave knew his background well. James had spent two decades as a software developer, working in startups and climbing the corporate ladder. Then in 2022, he had his own epiphany at Funnel Hacking Live and pivoted hard into funnel building. He became known as the linchpin guy, the one who helped people migrate from ClickFunnels Classic to 2.0 without losing their minds.
But now it was July 2024, and Dave was telling him to shift again.
James resisted. He told Dave he wasn’t interested in doing what everyone else was doing. The AI copy tools felt like shortcuts that didn’t deliver value. He didn’t want to be the guy selling another AI wrapper that spat out mediocre landing page copy.
Dave pushed back, but James held his ground. For months after that call, he watched the AI space from a distance. He saw people who had no technical background launching products built entirely with AI. Some of them were making money, but James couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all surface level.
Then the coding models got better.
By late 2024 and early 2025, something shifted. The AI tools that had been spitting out broken, buggy code a few months earlier were suddenly producing clean, functional output. So James started experimenting. He asked AI to help him catch up on modern development tools. He’d been out of the day-to-day software game for years, and the landscape had changed. New frameworks, methodologies, and ways of doing things.
But his fundamentals were still rock solid. He knew what good code looked like and he knew what high-quality applications felt like. AI didn’t replace that knowledge. It just filled in the gaps so he could move faster.
That’s when he realized what he could build.
Why He Said No to AI at First
James had wanted to build funnel monitoring software for years.
In the traditional software world, there’s a whole category of tools called application performance monitoring. These tools sit in the background and watch your software 24/7. They check if it’s up, if it’s fast, and if it’s working correctly. If something breaks, you get an alert before your customers even notice.
Funnels are web applications. They’re forms, buttons, pages, workflows. They need to work. But most funnel builders have no idea if their stuff is functioning until a client emails them saying, “Hey, my opt-in form isn’t working.”
By then, you’ve already lost leads, wasted ad spend, and damaged trust.
James saw this gap years ago and knew it was a problem worth solving. But he also knew what it would take to build something like that from scratch. He’d need to hire a team of developers, manage them, and deal with all the infrastructure issues.
So he shelved it.
But when the AI coding models improved, he had a different thought. What if he didn’t need to hire anyone? What if he could build it himself and use AI to bridge the knowledge gaps?
So he started experimenting. Instead of Googling “how to do X in modern web development,” he asked AI. Instead of spending hours debugging why something wasn’t working, he pasted in his code and let AI explain what was broken. The AI wasn’t writing the whole thing for him. It was accelerating the parts where he was rusty.
Within a few months, he had a working prototype. He tested it on his own funnels and found issues he didn’t even know existed. Pages that were slow. Links that were broken. Funnel hubs where “no index” was accidentally turned on, which meant Google couldn’t even see them.
He’d been a funnel builder for five years, and even he was making mistakes that were costing him traffic and conversions.
He realized this wasn’t just about building cool software. It was about showing other funnel builders that AI wasn’t the enemy. It was the tool that could help them add more value than ever before. So he built it.
The Software He’d Been Wanting to Build for Years
James called his software Sentinel. It runs in the background and checks your funnels constantly. Is the page loading fast? Are the buttons working? Are there broken links? Is the page accidentally hidden from Google?
But the software itself isn’t the point here. What matters is what it represents.
James used AI to do something he’d been putting off for years because it felt too hard, expensive, or risky. AI didn’t replace his expertise. It just removed the friction so he could execute faster.
When James started talking about what he’d built, he noticed a pattern. Funnel builders were scared. They’d seen the same headlines he had. “AI Will Replace Agencies.” “Build a Funnel in 30 Seconds With ChatGPT.” “Why You Don’t Need a Funnel Builder Anymore.”
The fear made sense. If someone could ask ChatGPT to build a funnel and get a decent result in a few minutes, why would they pay a funnel builder $3,000 to do it?
James’s answer was simple. Because that CEO doesn’t want to manage the AI. They don’t want to troubleshoot why the button isn’t working or why the email automation isn’t firing. They want to delegate it to someone who knows what they’re doing.
But here’s the catch. If you’re doing the same thing you were doing two years ago, you’re going to get priced out. If you’re still manually building one funnel at a time, taking three days to get a landing page live, and charging the same rates, clients will start wondering why they’re paying you at all.
Funnel builders who deliver faster, better results and charge based on the value they’re adding are the ones still winning. The ones clocking hours instead of solving problems are the ones in trouble.
What Funnel Builders are Scared of Right Now
The fear isn’t irrational. AI has changed the game, and it’s moving fast.
A funnel that used to take a full day to build can now be generated in under an hour if you know what you’re doing. The tools are getting better, the outputs are getting cleaner, and the barrier to entry for DIYers is getting lower.
So funnel builders are asking the same question. If my clients can do this themselves, why do they need me?
James thinks that question is backwards.
Your clients could always learn to build funnels themselves. They could watch YouTube tutorials, take a ClickFunnels course, buy a template, and figure it out. Some of them do but most of them don’t want to.
It’s the same reason Home Depot exists and contractors still make money. Sure, you can buy the tools and the materials and build your own deck. But most people would rather pay someone who knows what they’re doing so they can focus on literally anything else.
The CEO running a seven-figure business doesn’t want to spend three hours talking to an AI agent trying to get the button color right. They don’t want to debug why their email automation isn’t firing. They don’t want to figure out why their funnel looks broken on mobile.
They want to hand it to someone who can solve the problem fast, without them having to think about it.
That someone is you but only if you’re adding value.
Why Clients Will Always Need You (If You Add Value)
Instead of competing with AI, use it to your advantage.
The funnel builders who are panicking right now are the ones who were already doing the bare minimum. They were taking templates, swapping in a client’s logo and colors, and charging $2,000 for three hours of work. That model is dead.
But the funnel builders who were already adding strategic value? They’re thriving and just doing it faster now.
James gave an example. He was working with a client named Ted Hardy, a freedive instructor who’s featured on the ClickFunnels homepage. Ted wanted to migrate his funnel from another platform to ClickFunnels. James could have just rebuilt the same funnel, line for line. That’s what most people would do.
Instead, he asked a different question. What if we built two completely different designs and split tested them from day one?
Using AI, James generated two entirely different landing pages. Different color schemes, different layouts, different copy. It took him a fraction of the time it would have taken to hand-code everything. Then he wired them both up to ClickFunnels, connected the workflows, and set up the split test.
Now Ted doesn’t just have a funnel. He has data. He knows which design converts better. He can iterate from there. That’s value a template can’t provide.
James isn’t replacing ClickFunnels with AI. He’s using AI to build the front end faster, then connecting it to ClickFunnels to handle payments, email automation, and workflows.
That’s how you add value now.
Speed is the New Superpower
The old way of building funnels was slow. You’d pick a template, customize it, test it on desktop and mobile, troubleshoot the bugs, and hope it worked when you sent traffic to it.
If you wanted to test a different design, you’d start from scratch. That meant most funnel builders only built one version. They’d launch it, cross their fingers, and hope it converted.
Now? You can build five different versions in the time it used to take to build one.
James explained it like this. You’re building faster so you can test smarter. More tests mean faster learning, and faster learning means faster wins.
Let’s say you’re running Facebook ads for a meal prep company. The old way, you’d build one landing page, send traffic to it, and see what happens. If it doesn’t convert, you’d tweak the headline, then the CTA, then the button color. Each change takes time and costs ad spend.
The new way, you build three completely different landing pages using AI. One with a bold, high-contrast design, one with a clean minimal look, and one with a video above the fold. You split test all three from day one, and within a week you know which direction works. Then you improve from there.
And here’s where it gets even better. There’s a technology James mentioned called Model Context Protocol. You don’t need to know what that means, but here’s what it does. It lets your AI connect directly to platforms like Meta’s ad manager.
So you can ask your AI, “Which of my ads are getting the best click-through rates right now?” It pulls the data, shows you which creative is working, and then you use that information to build landing pages that match the winning ads.
Before, you’d run 20 different ads, see which ones performed, and then manually build a landing page that felt like a good match. Now, you can do it in real time. The AI sees which ads are crushing, generates landing pages that align with those messages, and you deploy them immediately.
You’re still doing the strategy. You’re just accelerating execution.
The Mindset That Wins
James doesn’t sugarcoat it. The world is changing fast, and it’s overwhelming.
Some people think AI is going to lead to some sci-fi nightmare where machines take over and humans become obsolete. But James doesn’t think that’s helpful.
His take is simpler. The AI world is moving too fast for anyone to keep up with everything. He follows a handful of newsletters that curate the best updates each week, skims them for what’s relevant to his audience, and ignores the rest. He’s not trying to be an expert on every new tool. He’s just staying informed enough to serve the people who trust him.
And when he feels that low-grade panic creeping in, the kind that makes you wonder if you’re falling behind or missing the boat, he refocuses on one thing. Serving others.
When you’re focused on yourself, the despair shows up. When you shift the focus to helping other people, it goes away.
He’s not building AI tools because he’s chasing trends. He’s building them because he sees funnel builders struggling, and he knows how to help them. He’s not promoting AI courses because everyone else is. He’s doing it because he genuinely believes this is the most exciting time to be alive, and he wants other people to see it too.
Fear doesn’t help, and neither does resistance. What helps is riding the wave and helping people along the way.
If you’re sitting on the beach watching the wave, you’re going to feel helpless. If you grab your surfboard and paddle out, you might enjoy it.
What This Means for You
If you’re doing the same thing you were doing two years ago, charging the same rates for the same work, you’re going to struggle. But if you’re using AI to test faster, build smarter, and deliver better results, you’re already ahead.
Your clients don’t want to manage AI agents. They want you to use AI to solve their problems faster and better than anyone else.
Here’s the good news. You don’t have to rebuild everything from scratch. You can use ClickFunnels to handle the backend infrastructure like payments, email automation, and hosting while you focus on what you’re actually good at: building landing pages faster and testing smarter with AI.
Speed matters because more tests mean faster learning, and faster learning means faster wins.
And if you’re feeling overwhelmed by how fast everything is moving, you don’t need to master every AI tool or read every update. Stay informed enough to serve your people well, and ignore the rest.
Ready to see how fast you can build and test funnels? Start your free trial of ClickFunnels and use AI to accelerate what you’re already good at.