The Studio CEO: Business Coaching For Yoga & Pilates Teachers & Studio Owners

How to Use AI in Your Yoga or Pilates Studio (Without Losing Your Brand or Your Revenue)

• Jackie Murphy

Share episode

Send Jackie A Message!

AI is changing the fitness, wellness, yoga, and Pilates industries fast — but most studio owners are unsure how to actually use it without hurting their business.

In this episode of the Studio CEO Podcast, Jackie Murphy breaks down how to use AI in your yoga or Pilates studio the right way — and where automation can quietly cost you revenue, retention, and trust. Jackie explains why AI should be treated like a team member with a specific role, not a replacement for leadership, coaching, or human connection.

You’ll learn where AI saves time, where it becomes risky, and why misusing AI in cancellations, sales conversations, and brand voice can damage long-term growth. This episode also covers how AI fits into studio software, marketing, admin systems, and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) — and why human judgment still matters more than ever.

If you’re a studio owner wondering how to stay relevant, profitable, and human in 2026 and beyond, this episode will give you clarity and confidence.


Timestamped Outline

  • [00:00] Why this episode exists + industry fear around AI
  • [03:00] Will AI replace coaches and studio owners?
  • [06:00] Thinking about AI as a team member
  • [08:00] Where AI goes wrong in marketing and brand voice
  • [11:30] Why AI should edit, not write your content
  • [15:30] Speed-to-lead and automated responses (done right)
  • [18:30] Why AI should NOT handle cancellations or refunds
  • [21:30] Objections, retention, and human conversations
  • [24:00] Using AI for SOPs, systems, and organization
  • [27:30] The rule studio owners must remember about AI
  • [28:45] Final thoughts on humanity, leadership, and growth


Work with Jackie Murphy


SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Studio CEO, the only podcast that empowers yoga and Pilates teachers and studio owners to step confidently into their role as CEO. If you are ready to show up with passion, take your business seriously, and scale to new heights without burning out, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Jackie Murphy, an award-winning certified business coach with over 12 years of experience inside the yoga industry. I have seen firsthand what it takes to build a profitable and scalable business. Join me as we dive into strategies, insights, and real-world advice that will help you grow your revenue, build a thriving team, and create a business that serves you as much as you serve your students. It's time to embrace your inner CEO and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning. Hello and welcome back to the Studio CEO podcast. I am Jackie Murphy, your business coach. Thank you so much for putting meat into your ears today. It means the world to me, and I really appreciate your time that you spend listening to this podcast. I love when I hear from you guys, like Jackie, I just listened to this episode and it made me think about this. And here's what I'm going to do about it. That is what I want you to do with this podcast. I want you to listen, think about how this impacts you or maybe is showing up for you in your business, and then execute strategically so that you can grow to the revenue that you want to have, the profit that you want to have, the freedom that you want to have in your business. And so today's episode is actually from an Instagram message. Someone who listens to the podcast sent me a message and said, Hey, can you do an episode on AI? And it took me a while to really gather all my thoughts, research about AI in the industry. And then within a week's time frame, I had two different people tell me, Hey, your job is on the line. Like you're people aren't going to need you within the next few years. And I was like, huh, interesting. What is happening right now is there are the softwares that most people use, Moments, Walla. They are rolling out new dashboards with new AI capabilities that are so incredible. You're getting deeper data, you're getting better insights, you're getting advice on what to do to grow your business. And I really can't tell you how far behind we were as an industry in terms of data. So this is so long overdue. But the idea that because you have access to more data means that a coach like me would be irrelevant, is actually something that we really have to talk about because I don't want you to misuse the new AI tools that are out there. Now, I will just say this. I'm not an AI expert. Like I don't know in 10 years if all of our jobs are gonna be replaced. I don't know if there'll be AI doctors and therapists. And right now, I would place my bet on that's not gonna happen. But if that is happening and all of our jobs are going to be on the line from AI, then hey, we will figure it out at that point in time. I'll tell you right now, I really don't think that my job is on the line within the next few years. And then third, I wanted to do this episode now because we just hosted a workshop inside the studio CEO program that is all about AEO, answer engine optimization. If you are using SEO, organic website traffic, organic Google searches to bring people to your business and you're seeing that dramatically decrease by 25 to 60%, it's not because you need to change your copy. It's not because you need a blog. It is literally because most Google searches now are being answered with Gemini, which is AI. And so AEO helps you be in that answer so that you can still get traffic in the same way. I was just reading an article that suggested that by mid-2026, 60 to 70% of Google searches will be answered with Gemini, answered with AI. So you can see how that will really change people's visibility, new students coming into their studio. If you have been using organic website traffic to bring people in, that AEO workshop is critical. So if you want that, you can join the studio CEO program and it's a bonus within that program. So all of these things kind of coming to a head. And I'm like, all right, let's do this episode on AI. We're gonna talk about what AI should be used for, what I wouldn't use it for, and kind of just my thoughts about what we're seeing as possibilities for AI right now within the industry. But before we do that, I want to share a core belief that I have about building teams. And when I think about AI, I think about it as a team member. I think about any software as a potential team member. Every person on your team should be in a role that aligns with their natural strengths. So, for example, my number one strengths, which makes me an excellent coach, is futuristic, meaning I can very easily sit in the role of the CEO and envision where we're going to be six months, 12 months, three years, five years from now. That is a CEO's main job. It is also why I'm so good at doing that for my clients. But because I am strong as a visionary with that futuristic skill, what I'm not great at is arranging and doing operations. So I wouldn't want to be in the operations role within my own business. Have I been? Yes. Have I managed people? Yes. Can I do it? Yes. But it doesn't come as naturally to me as futuristic visionary thinking does. And so if I'm gonna put a team together, I want someone in that operations role who operations is like the back of their hand. It comes naturally. They love it, it's fun for them versus me, like, yeah, I can do it, but I don't love it. Okay. My other strength, which makes me an excellent coach, is Activator. So not only can I see where you're going to go, but I am exceptionally skilled at getting you on stock and getting you on your way there. That is what I was naturally born with, those skill sets, right? So in my role in my business, I see and we go. That's what I help my clients do. Where are we going and how do we get on stuck to get there? So I want you to think about this for your own strengths and for your own business. Now, this is something we teach inside of the grow mastermind, but you really need to know what your strengths are and you need to know what the strengths of your team members are. And you need to make sure that each team member is in a role that aligns with their strengths. When that happens, the whole team literally feels like it fits like a puzzle piece. Everyone thrives and the work starts to feel easier, easier, and easier. The results get better and everyone is happier. AI is no different, although AI won't be happier. It doesn't matter because AI doesn't have feelings. But AI is a tool. And like any tool or team member, it has things that it's really, really good at. And it has things that it absolutely should not be doing. Um, writing your Instagram caption, your emails, okay? Those M-dashes, they're giving you away. The mistake that I see is that people are treating AI like it can do everything. So truly, like you might be using it to write emails, write captions, write website copy. And then you're wondering like why your brand voice is gone, why you're not differentiated in the market, why things are falling flat in terms of marketing. They're not compelling people to move. Or worse, you could be using AI in a way that it is costing you money. So if you're using AI to process membership cancellations, freeze requests, and refunds, I would highly encourage you to stop. Because you could be potentially losing thousands of dollars in profit because you're automating away an opportunity. So here's what I want you to understand AI is a team member with a very specific skill set. When you use it for what it's good for and keep it far away from what it's not good at, it becomes a very valuable tool in your business. So here is something that I need you to be so crystal clear on. My job as a business coach is to transform you. I'm going to transform your business, your team, and you as a human. That is what a solid coach does. I help you build a business that's profitable and scalable. I help you build a team that's empowered and effective. And I really have seen people transform in front of my own eyes as a leader, like totally shift their mindsets from self-doubt and disbelief, from scarcity to empowerment and leadership and confidence. AI is not good or cannot do any of that. AI can save you time, it can organize information, it can help you edit content, but it isn't going to do the deep work of transformation. It should not be your therapist, and I do not believe that it should be your coach. It cannot coach you through fear or self-doubt because it doesn't know what those things feel like. It really can't help you become the leader that your business needs to be. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't use it. I'm going to tell you how to use it. But in a coaching call, I'm reading your energy. I'm looking at your body language. I'm listening for what you're not saying. I'm getting you to tap into your body. AI doesn't have that ability yet, and it could one day, but it can't help you as a full human. In the same way, it can't help your team member who really needs a human conversation or a critical conversation to perform in their role. And it really can't see the potential in your business based on your personal vision and your brand. It can help you build towards whatever you tell it is the vision, but it really can't create that vision for you. That is human work, that is transformation work. And that is actually what creates profitable, thriving businesses. So let's talk about what AI is actually good at, not what people think it's good at, not what tech companies or software companies are selling that it's good at, but what I actually think you should be using it for right now in your studio. Number one, I think AI is a very, very helpful editor. Okay. It is not good at writing first drafts. When you ask AI to write you an email, to write you an email sequence for someone who's a new lead to buy your intro offer, it will generate content that will take a human eye less than 0.3 of a second to tell that it is AI. It will be generic, it will be safe, it'll use those M dashes, it'll use phrases like embark on a journey, nurture your mind, body, and soul. It will sound like every other studio because it's pulling from the same patterns across the internet. And just because AI can write your emails or it can write your caption or it could write your sales page, doesn't mean that it should. AI's top strength is not ideation, creativity. That is a marketer's top strength, but that's not AI's top strength. Ask AI. We had a conversation, me and AI before this. What I really think you should be doing is writing the first draft yourself. Because we need that human voice. This is only going to get more and more important. Your brand right now literally requires some type of human face, human voice, a person people connect to the brand behind the scenes content. That is only going to get more important in 2026. And so when you sit down and you think, what would I specifically say to Sam, the new student who's come in twice and we wanted to come back in for a third time? And I want to tell her a story and I want to help her connect to another client who had a similar situation as her. When you write an email from that place, it is going to convert. It is going to work so much better than if you copy and paste an email or you let AI create an email template for you and you send that. This is true for birthday text. Hey, we missed you. We haven't seen you in a year. Put some human behind that, y'all. Make it seem like you actually care. They haven't been there for a year. It's true for everything that you are writing in terms of copy, emails, website, Instagram captions, all of that. Now, what I like to use AI for is editing for different audiences. So let's say that I write an email and it's specifically targeted to people who've never tried yoga. I might write the email for myself and then I'll put it into AI and I'll say, hey, AI, I want you to edit this email, not to be for a cold audience, but to be for a slightly warmer audience that has practiced yoga once or twice, but they, for whatever reason, didn't connect. And I'll have AI change the tone and kind of change who I'm speaking to. If you want to learn about audiences, cold, warm, hot, there's a whole podcast episode on that. Or edit this for my current members, like people who've just come into the studio. They saw me yesterday. Write this email to them. It's going to be the same message, same core content, but AI is going to help you adjust the tone and context for different audiences. Also, just use it to edit for clarity, right? I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I'm a grammar queen. I have sent out emails with spelling errors, grammar errors, incorrect subject lines. Like I'm a human. I make human mistakes. And so let me use the robot to fix those human errors, not to take the human out of it. So edit this for clarity. Make this uh more understandable. Write this at a fourth grade reading level. And it will tighten it up and it'll make it cleaner, but it is still going to be your message. So that is what I use AI for in terms of writing. So I'm not using it to write captions, emails, or website copy. I am not using it to post AI content without editing it. I think you can tell when it's an AI photo. I think you can tell when it's an AI video. And y'all, I know it's good. And I know that when I'm 70, I am most likely to get scammed by how good AI is. It's a little scary. But I think you can still tell at this point. And so I'm not saying you can't create an AI-generated photo of you. I just still really believe that the human content is doing the best right now. And if that changes, I will let you know. Okay. The second thing that I think you should be using AI for is responding quick to new leads and to clients. AI now can answer your potential new student within seconds, where your client services person might not see the email until the next day. And so you can use AI to get back to potential clients fast. You can use it to handle routine administrative tasks like canceling class, all of that. Or you could think about this: like when someone fills out a contact form or a lead form about your intro offer, the faster you're going to respond, the more likely they are to book. So studies show that if you respond within five minutes, you're 21 more times likely to convert that lead than if you wait an hour. Like getting there fast matters. But I'm not about you always being on your phone or being that person responding. So I really like using AI to give an automated response with basic info, with scheduling link, and let them know that it is an automated message and a human will follow up soon. We can tell when it's AI, we can tell when it's automated. Everyone knows when they've gotten a mini chat response. And I use mini chat. So I'm not saying don't use this. But if you can use it and then say, and a human and Jackie or Mary or Tom or whatever your name is will follow up within X amount of time. That builds trust with your person. And it also doesn't clog that student's journey, right? Like they can keep moving along, they can get scheduled, they can purchase, and still they feel seen, they have the information, and they'll understand why you're following up with them the next day because you already told them that you could. So here's why I where AI is really powerful. And in the studio software, like moments, they have AI that can handle routine tasks like booking sessions, can sending confirmations and reminders, letting them know that payments are processed. When a customer checks in, they can do that. Wait list, it can add them to the wait list, appointments reserved, like all of that can happen now. And good AI knows when to escalate it to a human. So just think about that. AI can do some things, but AI knows that there's limitations and knows at some point it needs to go to a human. How many times have y'all been on a client services phone line and you know you're talking to a robot and all you keep repeating is speak to a human, speak to an agent, speak to customer support, connect me to a human. This was me yesterday with an insurance thing. Like we want to be able to have a human conversation because we know that human will understand the nuance so much faster and make it easy for us to get what we're looking for than a client services AI agent can do. And so this is where it could start to become damaging if AI is the only touch point with new leads. So let's say that AI responds to your new lead first, and then you have AI send a confirmation email, and then you have AI write the whole funnel from new student to new member, and then you have AI do a follow-up for them to purchase. They will feel it. They will feel it. Y'all know the studios that are already doing this. It doesn't feel human and it doesn't breed connection. So much of the reason why people buy from us is for community and connection. So we don't want to overuse this. The other thing is that AI is not going to be able to handle objections. It's not going to be able to read hesitation, and it's not going to be able to build trust. Okay. So if someone tells you, I don't know if I'll use the membership enough, AI can give you the generic answer. Like if you use it twice a week, then X. Per class, right? But that's not actually what that human is saying. They're not worried about the class price per class when they're telling you, I'm not sure I'm going to use this. They're telling you I have self-doubt. They're telling you, I don't know if I'll get the result I want. They're telling you, I don't know if I feel fully seen and safe. I don't know if you'll actually hold me accountable. All of that is human objection that can only be handled from a human. So one of the things that I saw that AI can do right now is handle all cancellation requests, all freeze requests, and all refund requests. And I would stay so far away from that. Why? Because the moment when someone is coming to you to cancel or to freeze or to request a refund, that is an opportunity for you to have a human connection, an interaction with this client and potentially keep them as a client, keep them in the business. AI is not going to care about that. AI is going to be like membership cancellation request. My job is to complete tasks, complete the task, cancel the membership, move on. There's no human element to that. What can we do in terms of how often you're coming? Is there another solution? Here's what we can offer you. There's no nothing in that moment that you're going to be able to get from AI handling that. Now I'm not saying, I know the cancellation laws have changed. I'm not saying that you're not going to cancel clients when they ask, but that is an opportunity, one, to downsell them to something that does fit their time or schedule. It's an opportunity to upsell them to maybe privates or something that they want that's not group classes. It is an opportunity to get feedback. And so if we take you out of that and we put AI into that, you're losing all of that data. And that is so valuable. That data is so, so valuable. If you can look at all your cancellation requests from the past month and say, every single person is saying, I don't have time, I'm not using this. Perfect. That data we have to have because we have to change our retention strategy. We have to change what people think about how much they should use their package, right? These are all the things that when you are thinking about their human mind and what they're thinking and how they're feeling and how they're using their membership, AI can't do that yet. And so even if you have a software that can say, hey, this person hasn't been in for two weeks, reach out to them. Again, that's so superficial. Why haven't they been in? What's going on with them? What were their goals? Make it personal, have that human connection. Use the data that AI is telling you, hey, this person hasn't been in two weeks, but then pop in the human. I think I'm on a soapbox, I'm gonna keep going. Do y'all understand that? Okay. Number three, I think AI is really good at organizing information and you could use it to create SOPs for your business. So when you want an operating procedure that let's say your new manager can follow to onboard and hire all new teachers, you can do a voice dump or you can say, AI, this is everything I do to onboard a new teacher. Turn this into a step-by-step SOP with clear action items. And it will give you the SOP that can just live in your handbook from there on out. It's also really good at figuring out, like, what is the pattern in this data? So let's say you have a team meeting, you could record that team meeting and put that into AI and say, tell me the key talking points, tell me the issues that were brought up repeatedly. What is the pattern in this data? And then you can really use it again to make communication clear and objective. So making sure that sometimes when we're sending a policy update on like how to get a sub for your class, we think we're being clear, but AI will help you think of all the details, any questions that a potential teacher might ask, and then create an email that covers all of that before you even send it, right? So use it almost like to check your work and fill in those gaps for processes, policies, procedures, that sort of thing. What it's not gonna be helpful at is like giving feedback to teachers, handling team conflict, no, or really just coming up with a generic process. If you don't know what you do in the process, AI is not gonna be able to create that for you. So let's talk about like we've gone over so many different things where we're not gonna use AI, creating content from the start, membership cancellations, rerun requests, being the only touch point with neat leads or with clients, interpreting data or reports. Listen, I do think that it is good at looking at data and saying, like baseline level, this is what's happening. Oftentimes I don't see the next level there. So let me give you a very clear example. Within Walla now, which is so cool, I love Walla. Within Walla, you can see like, oh, membership churn is X amount. And it will give you a recommendation of we recommend you run a referral program. Great, awesome, beautiful idea. But then where I come in is that how do you do that? And how do you do that well? And how do you do that with the human element? And how do you do it so it's gonna work? And how do you set goals for that? I don't recommend the affiliate links. Like it can give you a touch point for like data says this, we suggest this, but then how do you really know what strategy is best for your vision in your business? And how do you implement that strategy in an effective human way? Okay. I also really don't think that AI should be anywhere near your sequences or your like your actual teaching because there's nuance, right? There's so much nuance. So I would not be using it to write class sequences. It's just not there yet. It doesn't have a body, it doesn't understand how it feels, doesn't understand what that would look like in the human body. And I definitely wouldn't use it to make decisions about team without you putting insight and information in. Okay. So really like big picture is AI is not gonna help you do the transformational work that happens when you run a business. It's not gonna coach you through fear or self-doubt. Can't understand those things. And it's not gonna really help you become the CEO outside of telling you, like, hey, here are the tasks you could do. It's not super great about shifting your mindset when you're stuck. And I'd be really, really careful because AI has memory, right? So if at one point in time you put in like a studio is not possible in my area, it's going to remember that. Be like, give you information based on that thought error. So I just would be really careful about the advice that you're getting from AI. It's not gonna be able to help you manage team members in a really effective human way, see potential in your business that you can't see yet, hold space for you when you need to process something, challenge you when you need to be challenged. If you want AI to not just be a yes man, you actually have to prompt it to challenge you. Otherwise, it'll just tell you that you're amazing, which hey, have AI do that all day long. Get an ego boost, celebrate with AI, do that. So here is what I really think like your work is to transform your business, make it profitable and scalable, to transform your team, getting them to be empowered, A players, effective and happy in their roles, and to help you become the leader that you really need to be. And AI is just not going to step in and take over and do all of that. But we do want to use it effectively. So it's for efficiency on routine, it's for making sure that you are clear, it's making sure that you are automated and have processes and systems in your business, but it's not going to be a replacement for your humanity, your expertise, your sales skills, your judgment, and your growth as a leader. So use AI where it is strong and low risk and keep humans in charge of anything and everything that impacts revenue, relationships, retention, or transformation. Okay, that last sentence, write it down. Okay, so here's what I want you to do. After listening to this episode, if you totally disagree with me, send me a message. If you do agree with me, send me a message. Like this is an open conversation. And honestly, by next year, a year from this podcast being released, this conversation will be different because AI is advancing so rapidly that this might be totally wrong within a year. We'll see. But for now, think about this. Think about AI as a team member, what its strengths are, where you can put it to work in its strengths, and then keep the human part of your business so, so human. Because at the end of the day, you are your business. You are the vision, you are the brand voice, you are the human touch, and you are ear replaceable. So keep yourself front and center in the places that matter most. All right, my friends. I will talk to you all in the next episode. Send me a message on Instagram if you want to chat. All things AI.