The Internet Belonged to Everyone Once. It Could Again.

I’ve been online long enough to remember Myspace. Like, actually remember it... the custom layouts, the top eight drama, spending forty-five minutes (at least) clicking through your favorite bands' pages while picking your profile song. Nobody was “building a personal brand.” We were just out here with our feelings and a dial-up connection, and somehow it felt like the internet belonged to us.

That feeling didn’t last, obviously. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately because - and I want to be careful about how I say this - I haven’t felt this excited about being online since then. Maybe more excited.

And the reason is AI.

I know. I know how that sounds.

So before I get into why I’m genuinely lit up about this moment in our lives, I want to talk about the part that’s harder, because I think it actually deserves more than a disclaimer.

AI data centers use a significant amount of water to keep their systems cool. That’s not speculation - it’s documented. And in some regions, that water draw is happening in communities that are already dealing with drought, already watching their aquifers drop. The people absorbing the biggest impact are often not the people seeing the biggest benefit. That’s a real harm. The displacement of creative workers through AI-generated content is also real. These aren’t things I’m interested in tucking into a footnote.

So where does that leave someone like me - someone who works in AI strategy and genuinely believes in what these tools can do?

It's a difficult question to debate with myself, but here’s where I keep landing: it leaves me with a responsibility, not a contradiction.

The solution to AI’s environmental footprint isn’t individual opt-out. Honestly, my personal decision to stop using (insert your own favorite LLM here) tomorrow would have essentially zero impact on a data center’s water consumption. That’s just the math. What actually moves the needle is policy, corporate accountability, pressure on the companies building this infrastructure, and real investment in better cooling technology. Those are the levers. Collective use doesn’t have to mean collective guilt, but it does mean we have to stay in the conversation, not check out of it.

What I can do - and what I think any of us operating in this space can do - is use these tools with enough intention that they actually earn their footprint. Not treating AI like a novelty. Not generating content just to generate content. Using it in ways that close gaps rather than widen them, especially for people who don’t have teams of consultants or agencies behind them.

And okay, here comes the part I get genuinely excited about.

What I’m watching happen right now reminds me of those early internet days, except the stakes are higher and (I really do believe this) the potential reach is bigger. The gap between what a well-resourced business can do and what a solo operator or small team can do is narrowing in ways that I did not even dream of seeing in my career. A blue-collar contractor who’s excellent at their trade but has never had a marketing team can now get real support building their proposals, their follow-ups, their whole client communication process. A first-generation entrepreneur who’s always had the ideas but never had the infrastructure can now actually build something that works.

Most people I talk to don’t realize yet what’s actually available to them. That genuinely surprises me every time.

I’m not naive about who captures these tools first - we’ve seen how tech rollouts go, and it’s not usually the people who need them most. But I’m not willing to hand the whole conversation over to the cynics, or to the people who’ve already figured out how to consolidate the gains for themselves. There’s real work to be done helping everyday people understand what’s available and how to use it in ways that serve their actual lives.

That’s the work I’m in.

That’s why I’m paying attention to the ethics - not because I want to perform accountability, but because the tools only live up to their potential if we’re honest about what they cost and intentional about how we use them. I’m excited about this moment. I also think it asks something of us. Honestly? I think that’s part of what makes it worth showing up for.