Rather amazingly, Simon Mercer, director of Pearldrop, was in the top 0.1% of ChatGPT users in 2025.
That ranking isn’t based on how many messages were sent. Plenty of people interact with ChatGPT far more frequently. Instead, it reflects something more meaningful: how deeply AI has become embedded in Simon’s working life — not as a novelty, but as a serious thinking tool.
At Pearldrop, AI isn’t treated as a bolt-on or a gimmick. It’s part of how ideas are tested, refined, and strengthened before they ever reach a client. It’s less about volume, and far more about intent.
AI Isn’t the Shortcut People Think It Is
Simon doesn’t use AI purely for novelty or shortcuts.
(Although, like anyone, he’ll admit it’s occasionally useful for that too.)
In practice, it’s used to:
- stress-test ideas before they’re committed to
- sharpen thinking and challenge assumptions
- explore creative directions more deeply and more efficiently
- move faster without lowering standards
Used properly, AI isn’t about replacing judgement or craft — it’s about augmenting them. Creativity, taste, experience, and attention to detail still have to come from people. The difference now is that there’s a tool more powerful than anything previously available to interrogate thinking and pressure-test ideas.
That power cuts both ways.
Used lazily, AI produces lazy results. Used without judgement, it dilutes quality. But used deliberately, it strengthens decision-making and raises the bar rather than lowering it.
From “Interesting” to Genuinely Useful
For a long time, AI felt impressive but detached from real work. It could do clever things, but not always things you’d trust with anything important.
For Simon, 2025 was the year that changed.
That was when AI stopped being “interesting” and started being useful — not perfect, not magical, but genuinely helpful in the messy, real-world process of creating, deciding, refining, and delivering.
Looking ahead, 2026 feels like a dividing line.
Not between people who “use AI” and people who don’t — but between those who have learned how to collaborate with it properly and those who haven’t.
So How Do You End Up in the Top 0.1%?
It’s not about prompts.
It’s about intent.
Here are a few principles that have made the difference.
Treat It Like a Collaborator, Not a Vending Machine
Simon doesn’t ask for “an answer” and move on.
Ideas are pushed back on. Outputs are challenged. Directions are refined. The process continues until the thinking is genuinely stronger than where it started. If something feels obvious, lazy, or off-tone, it’s rejected — no matter how confident it sounds.
The real value comes from dialogue, not one-shot outputs.
Bring Context, Not Just Questions
The more real-world detail you provide — constraints, audience, tone, stakes, limitations — the more useful the output becomes.
Vague input guarantees average results.
The creative industry has long had a phrase for this: garbage in, garbage out.
AI simply makes that truth unavoidable.
Use It to Think, Not to Type
Typing is the last 10%.
The biggest gains come from using AI for strategy, structure, framing, and decision-making. It’s most powerful when helping clarify what you’re trying to do and why, rather than just how to phrase it.
If it’s only used at the writing stage, most of its value is being left on the table.
Apply Judgement Ruthlessly
A significant amount of output is discarded — deliberately.
That’s not a failure of the tool; it’s a requirement of using it well. Knowing what not to use is just as important as knowing what to keep. Taste, experience, and judgement arguably matter more now than they ever did before.
AI doesn’t remove responsibility. It amplifies it.
Build It Into the Workflow
AI isn’t a panic button five minutes before a deadline.
At Pearldrop, it’s present at the start of projects, throughout development, and again at the polishing stage. It helps explore, test, refine, and sanity-check — not rescue poor planning at the end.
That consistency is where the compounding benefit comes from.
The Real Advantage
The people getting the most out of AI aren’t the most technical.
They’re the most curious, deliberate, and demanding.
They ask better questions. They care about quality. They challenge outputs instead of accepting the first reasonable answer. That’s where the real edge is.
Simon believes 2026 will be a year of astonishing change across every industry, and it’s something he’s actively leaning into — creatively, strategically, and practically.
If you’d like to talk about this in more depth — whether from a creative, business, or implementation perspective — Simon is more than happy to continue the conversation.
