Burn tokens, not headcount: how small teams should hear that AI phrase

A phrase from a recent AI talk has been making the rounds: "burn tokens, not headcount." It sounds cold at first. The right way to hear it is one of the most useful framings a small-business owner can carry into the AI era. Armando Perez-Carreno walks through how small teams are getting more leverage from AI than ever before, and where the trap lies. Hiring another coordinator or rep to handle volume can feel like the right move. But what if the workflow itself is the problem? People matter too much to waste their time acting like glue between systems. That's the work AI is genuinely good at, and the work humans should be free to stop doing. This isn't a video about layoffs. It's about asking better questions before you add headcount: which parts of the work belong to a person, and which belong to a system? If your knowledge isn't captured cleanly inside the company, no AI tool will offload much.