Schema Nightmares: How Priya Sharma’s AI Tool Got Her Client a Google Penalty
Priya: —hello? Morgan?
Morgan: Hey! Yeah, I can hear you. How are you?
Priya: I’m good. Nervous, but good. [laughs] I’ve never done one of these interview things before.
Morgan: Don’t worry, it’s super casual. We’re just talking. I’m literally sitting in my kitchen right now eating leftover Thai food.
Priya: [laughs] Okay, that makes me feel better. I’m in my home office pretending to look professional even though I’m wearing pajama pants.
Morgan: Perfect. Okay, so before we get into the disaster, tell me about yourself. What do you do?
Priya: I’m a Structured Data Consultant. I’ve been doing this for about seven years. I help companies implement schema markup— JSON-LD, microdata, all that stuff. My specialty is healthcare and medical practices.
Morgan: Why healthcare specifically?
Priya: I kind of fell into it. My first big client was a hospital network in 2018, and I got really good at understanding all the specific schema types for medical content. Physician schema, MedicalProcedure, MedicalCondition— there’s a lot of nuance in that vertical.
Morgan: And you used an AI tool to generate schema?
Priya: [sighs] Yeah. That was… that was my big mistake.
Morgan: When did this happen?
Priya: This past summer. July 2025. I’d just signed this new client— a group of urgent care clinics. They had twelve locations across Northern California and their website was a mess. No schema markup at all, which meant they were missing out on rich results, knowledge panels, all of it.
Morgan: So you decided to use AI to speed things up?
Priya: Exactly. They wanted all twelve locations implemented within two weeks because they were launching a marketing campaign. Normally, I’d spend maybe a week per location doing schema properly. But twelve locations in two weeks? That’s impossible to do manually and maintain quality.
Morgan: What tool did you use?
Priya: It was this new AI schema generator that had just launched. Really slick interface, built specifically for healthcare sites. You’d input basic information about the practice— doctor names, services offered, locations— and it would automatically generate the complete schema markup.
Morgan: That sounds convenient.
Priya: It was! Too convenient, as it turned out. I tested it on one location first, and the schema looked perfect. Validated in Google’s testing tool, no errors, everything structured correctly. So I thought, great, this is going to save me so much time.
Morgan: What happened next?
Priya: I used the tool to generate schema for all twelve locations. The client gave me spreadsheets with all the doctor information— names, specialties, the services they offered at each location. I fed all that data into the AI tool, and within like three hours, I had complete schema markup for every location. Provider schemas, service schemas, location schemas, review schemas— everything.
Morgan: And you implemented it right away?
Priya: I did. I validated everything in Google’s Rich Results Test, and it all passed. No errors, no warnings. So I deployed it to production on July 18th, and the client was thrilled. They kept saying how professional everything looked in their knowledge panels.
Morgan: When did things go wrong?
Priya: Three weeks later. August 8th. I get this email from Google Search Console saying their site has a manual action for “misleading structured data.” And my stomach just drops because I’ve never gotten a manual action for schema before.
Morgan: What did the manual action say?
Priya: It said that Google had detected structured data on the site that misrepresented the qualifications and credentials of medical professionals. And there was this ominous line about how misleading health information is taken very seriously.
Morgan: Oh shit.
Priya: Yeah. So I immediately log into their site and start looking at the schema I’d implemented. And at first, everything looks fine. But then I start really reading through the Provider schemas for each doctor, and I notice something weird.
Morgan: What?
Priya: One of the doctors— Dr. Jennifer Martinez— her schema listed her as “Board Certified in Emergency Medicine and Pediatric Surgery.” But I remembered from the spreadsheet that she was only certified in Emergency Medicine. So I check the original data, and yeah, she’s not a pediatric surgeon.
Morgan: The AI added that?
Priya: The AI added it. And then I started checking other doctors, and it got worse. Another doctor had invented fellowships listed. One doctor’s schema claimed she’d graduated from Johns Hopkins when she’d actually gone to UC Davis. Another doctor had medical specialties listed that he didn’t have.
Morgan: How did the AI even come up with this stuff?
Priya: [long pause] I spent days trying to figure that out. My best guess is that the AI was trained on medical schema examples, and when it didn’t have complete information, it would… fill in the gaps with plausible-sounding credentials.
Morgan: It hallucinated medical qualifications.
Priya: Exactly. And the really scary part is that the hallucinations were believable. Like, it wasn’t saying “Dr. Smith is an astronaut.” It was saying “Dr. Smith completed a fellowship in Trauma Surgery at Stanford” when he’d actually just done a standard residency. Specific enough to sound real, but completely false.
Morgan: What did you do first?
Priya: I panicked. Then I called the client. The call was… [pause] …it was bad. Because not only had I implemented fake credentials on their website, but those credentials had been live for three weeks. Patients might have chosen their doctors based on false information.
Morgan: What did the client say?
Priya: The clinic director— her name was Angela— she was furious. Not yelling furious, but cold furious, which is worse. She said, “Priya, we could be liable for this. If someone sues us claiming they chose a doctor based on false credentials, that’s on us.”
Morgan: Could they actually be sued for that?
Priya: I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. But the possibility alone was terrifying. We’re talking about healthcare, not like, a pizza restaurant. The stakes are so much higher.
Morgan: What did you do to fix it?
Priya: I removed all the schema immediately. Like, that day. Just stripped it all out. Then I spent the next week manually rebuilding schema for each doctor using only the exact information from their verified credentials. Nothing added, nothing embellished, nothing the AI generated.
Morgan: How long did that take?
Priya: About 60 hours. I worked basically around the clock for a week. And then I submitted a reconsideration request to Google explaining what had happened and what I’d done to fix it.
Morgan: Did Google accept it?
Priya: Eventually. But it took six weeks. Six weeks where the client’s site had no rich results, reduced visibility in search, and a big red manual action flag in Search Console. Their organic traffic dropped about 25% during that time.
Morgan: How much did that cost them?
Priya: They estimated about $40,000 in lost revenue from reduced search visibility. And that’s being conservative.
Morgan: Did they fire you?
Priya: Yes. The day after the manual action was lifted, Angela called me and said they were terminating our contract. She was professional about it, but firm. She said they couldn’t trust me anymore.
Morgan: How did that feel?
Priya: [pause] Devastating. This was my biggest client. They were paying me $6,000 a month. Over a year, that’s $72,000. Plus, they were going to refer me to other healthcare networks. That’s all gone now.
Morgan: Did you refund them?
Priya: I refunded them for three months of work— $18,000. It was all the money I’d earned from them since implementing the schema. It felt like the least I could do.
Morgan: That’s a lot of money.
Priya: It was my entire savings. But I’d rather be broke than unethical, you know?
Morgan: Do you think you were unethical?
Priya: [long pause] I don’t think I intended to be unethical. But the outcome was unethical. I put false information about doctors’ credentials on a public website. Even if it was the AI’s fault, I’m the one who deployed it without checking.
Morgan: Did you check at all?
Priya: I checked that the schema validated. I checked that there were no syntax errors. But I didn’t check the actual content of what the AI generated against the source data. And that’s where I fucked up.
Morgan: Why didn’t you check the content?
Priya: Honestly? Because I trusted the AI. And because I was in a hurry. The client wanted it done in two weeks, and I was so focused on meeting that deadline that I cut corners.
Morgan: Do you think the deadline was realistic?
Priya: No. But I should have pushed back. I should have said, “This is going to take six weeks if you want it done right.” Instead, I said yes because I didn’t want to lose the client.
Morgan: And you lost them anyway.
Priya: [laughs bitterly] Yeah. Ironic, right?
Morgan: Have you told other people about this?
Priya: Not many. My husband knows. A few close friends. But I’ve been too embarrassed to talk about it publicly. Until now, I guess.
Morgan: Why did you agree to this interview?
Priya: Because I keep seeing other people on Twitter and LinkedIn talking about using AI to generate schema at scale. And I want to warn them. Like, this is not a theoretical risk. This actually happened to me.
Morgan: What would you tell someone who’s considering using AI for schema generation?
Priya: [exhales] Verify everything. Like, literally everything. Don’t just check that it validates— check that every single claim in the schema is factually accurate. Because if you put false information in structured data, Google will catch it and you will get penalized.
Morgan: Do you still use AI in your work?
Priya: Very limited. I use it to help structure my thinking sometimes, or to draft documentation. But I will never, ever use it to generate schema again. The risk is too high.
Morgan: Even if you verify the output?
Priya: Maybe if I verify the output. But honestly, at that point, why use the AI? If I have to verify every single line anyway, I might as well just write it myself from scratch.
Morgan: That’s fair. Have you gotten new clients since this happened?
Priya: A few. But business is slower. I lost my biggest client, and I can’t use them as a reference anymore. And I’m gun-shy about taking on healthcare clients now because the stakes are so high.
Morgan: What are you focusing on instead?
Priya: E-commerce, mostly. Still doing structured data, but for products and reviews and things where the accuracy requirements are less critical. Like, if schema says a product is available when it’s not, that’s annoying. But it’s not the same as lying about a doctor’s medical credentials.
Morgan: Do you miss healthcare work?
Priya: I do, actually. I liked being good at something specialized. And healthcare schema is really interesting because there’s so much nuance. But I don’t know if I’ll go back to it. The risk feels too high now.
Morgan: Because you don’t trust yourself?
Priya: [pause] Yeah. I mean, I thought I was being careful. I thought I was doing everything right. And I still screwed up. So how do I know I won’t screw up again?
Morgan: That’s a fair question.
Priya: Right? And I don’t have a good answer. So for now, I’m just being really conservative. Slow and steady. Only taking projects where I can verify everything manually.
Morgan: Is that sustainable financially?
Priya: Not really. I’m making about half what I was making before. But I’d rather make less money and sleep at night than take on risky projects and stress about whether I’m going to get another client penalized.
Morgan: Have you heard from Angela since they fired you?
Priya: Once. She emailed me a few months ago asking a technical question about something I’d implemented before the schema disaster. I answered it, and she thanked me. It was cordial but distant.
Morgan: Do you think you’ll ever repair that relationship?
Priya: [pause] No. I think that bridge is burned. And I don’t blame her. If I were in her position, I wouldn’t trust me either.
Morgan: That’s pretty harsh on yourself.
Priya: Maybe. But it’s realistic. Trust is everything in consulting. Once you lose it, it’s almost impossible to get back.
Morgan: What’s the biggest lesson you learned from all this?
Priya: [long pause] That AI is a tool, not a solution. It can help you work faster, but it can’t replace critical thinking or domain expertise. And when you’re working in high-stakes fields like healthcare, you can’t afford to cut corners.
Morgan: Do you think the AI tool should be held responsible?
Priya: I don’t know. I mean, they should probably have better safeguards against hallucinations. But at the end of the day, I’m the one who deployed the code. I’m the one the client hired. So the responsibility is mine.
Morgan: That’s very accountable of you.
Priya: Well, what else can I do? Blame the AI? That doesn’t help anyone. I made a mistake, and I have to own it and learn from it.
Morgan: Are you still in contact with the AI tool company?
Priya: I emailed them after the manual action to let them know what happened. They said they were “investigating the issue.” Never heard back after that. I don’t think they fixed anything.
Morgan: Did you ask for a refund from them?
Priya: Yeah. They ignored me.
Morgan: That’s shitty.
Priya: [laughs] Yeah. But also, I should have read their terms of service. There was probably something in there about not being liable for output accuracy. That’s on me for not checking.
Morgan: You’re being very generous to people who probably don’t deserve it.
Priya: Maybe. But being angry doesn’t help. I’d rather focus on rebuilding my business and reputation.
Morgan: How’s that going?
Priya: Slowly. I’ve been writing blog posts about structured data best practices, trying to rebuild my authority. I’ve also been more active in SEO communities, helping people with schema questions. Just trying to remind people that I know what I’m doing, even though I made a massive mistake.
Morgan: Do people know about the mistake?
Priya: Some do. It came up in one community, and I was honest about it. Most people were supportive, actually. A few people were judgmental, but that’s to be expected.
Morgan: What did the supportive people say?
Priya: Things like “That could have happened to anyone” or “Thanks for the warning.” A few people DM’d me saying they’d had similar experiences with AI tools generating bad data. So I don’t think I’m alone in this.
Morgan: That must be somewhat comforting.
Priya: It is. It doesn’t undo what happened, but it helps to know I’m not the only person who’s been burned by AI hallucinations.
Morgan: [pause] Okay, last question. If you could give advice to your past self in July, what would you say?
Priya: [pause] I’d say, “Tell the client it’s going to take six weeks, not two. And if they can’t wait, they’re not the right client.”
Morgan: Would July Priya listen?
Priya: [laughs] Probably not. I was so excited about the project and the money. But at least I’d have tried.
Morgan: Alright, I should let you go. Thank you for being so candid about all this. I know it couldn’t have been easy.
Priya: Thanks for letting me tell the story. It actually feels good to get it out there. Like maybe someone will read this and avoid making the same mistake.
Morgan: I’m sure they will. Take care, Priya.
Priya: You too, Morgan.
[end]
Key Lessons Learned
“AI is a tool, not a solution. It can help you work faster, but it can’t replace critical thinking or domain expertise.”
1. AI Hallucinations Are Dangerous in High-Stakes Fields
The AI didn’t just make minor errors—it invented medical fellowships, fabricated board certifications, and changed graduate schools. In healthcare, false credentials aren’t just misleading; they create legal liability and erode patient trust.
2. Validation ≠ Verification
Priya checked that schema validated in Google’s testing tool (no syntax errors), but didn’t verify the content against source data. Technical correctness doesn’t guarantee factual accuracy.
3. Unrealistic Deadlines Lead to Corner-Cutting
Twelve locations in two weeks was impossible to do properly. Instead of pushing back, Priya said yes and relied on an AI tool to meet the deadline. The shortcut cost her the client and $40K in their revenue.
“The client wanted it done in two weeks, and I was so focused on meeting that deadline that I cut corners.”
4. AI Fills Gaps with Plausible Fiction
When the AI lacked complete information, it generated believable-sounding credentials: “Fellowship in Trauma Surgery at Stanford” or “Board Certified in Pediatric Surgery.” The hallucinations were specific enough to seem real but completely fabricated.
5. Healthcare Schema Has Legal Implications
This wasn’t just an SEO penalty—it created potential legal exposure. If patients chose doctors based on false credentials, the clinic could face lawsuits. The stakes in medical content are exponentially higher than in e-commerce or entertainment.
6. Manual Actions Are Slow to Resolve
Even after removing all problematic schema and submitting a detailed reconsideration request, the penalty lasted six weeks. During that time, the client lost 25% of organic traffic and approximately $40,000 in revenue.
7. Trust Is Fragile in Consulting
Angela’s response wasn’t angry—it was cold and final. Once trust breaks in a professional relationship, especially over something as serious as false medical credentials, it’s nearly impossible to rebuild.
8. The AI Tool Company Avoided Accountability
After Priya reported the hallucination issue, the company said they were “investigating” and then ghosted her. They refused refunds and likely had terms of service absolving them of liability for output accuracy.
9. Domain Expertise Can’t Be Automated
Priya had seven years of healthcare schema experience, but the AI had none. It couldn’t distinguish between “Emergency Medicine certification” (real) and “Pediatric Surgery certification” (invented) because it lacked medical domain knowledge.
10. Slow and Verified Beats Fast and Risky
Priya now spends 60 hours manually building schema she could theoretically generate in 3 hours with AI. She makes half her previous income but sleeps at night. In high-stakes work, thoroughness justifies the time investment.
About Priya Sharma
Priya Sharma is a Structured Data Consultant with seven years of experience implementing schema markup for complex websites. She specializes in healthcare and medical practice schema, including Provider, MedicalProcedure, and MedicalCondition structured data types.
After working as a frontend developer for three years, Priya discovered structured data optimization in 2018 while helping a hospital network improve their search visibility. She found the intersection of technical implementation and SEO strategy fascinating and built a specialized consulting practice around it.
In July 2025, facing an aggressive two-week deadline to implement schema for twelve urgent care locations, Priya used an AI schema generation tool to speed up the process. The tool passed all validation tests but had hallucinated medical credentials for multiple doctors—inventing fellowships, fabricating board certifications, and changing educational backgrounds. Google issued a manual action for misleading structured data three weeks later.
“I thought I was being careful. I thought I was doing everything right. And I still screwed up.”
The penalty cost her client approximately $40,000 in lost revenue during the six-week resolution period and resulted in immediate contract termination. Priya refunded three months of fees ($18,000—her entire savings) and spent 60 hours manually rebuilding accurate schema to resolve the penalty.
The experience shifted her entire business model. She no longer works primarily in healthcare, has reduced her client load by half, and refuses to use AI for schema generation. Her current approach prioritizes manual verification of every data point over speed and scale.
Priya now focuses on e-commerce structured data where accuracy stakes are lower, though she occasionally consults on healthcare projects with extended timelines that allow thorough manual verification. She’s become an advocate for responsible AI use in technical SEO, frequently warning others in communities about the risks of automated schema generation.
Priya lives in the Bay Area and spends her free time volunteering as a coding instructor for underrepresented groups in tech.
This interview was conducted via video call in November 2025. Priya was forthcoming about both her technical decisions and the emotional weight of losing her largest client. The conversation has been edited for clarity while preserving her emphasis on accountability and the specific risks of AI hallucinations in healthcare contexts.
![# The Prompt Engineer's Confession: Tom Bradley on the SEO Shortcuts That Backfired **Tom:** Can you hear me okay? **Morgan:** Yeah, you're good. Can you see me? **Tom:** I can see you, but you're frozen. Wait— [pause] —there you go. Okay, we're good. **Morgan:** Perfect. So I'm just gonna jump right in. You ran an SEO agency and basically automated yourself into the ground? **Tom:** [laughs] Jesus, that's blunt. But yeah, that's accurate. **Morgan:** Tell me how it started. **Tom:** Okay, so I founded Bradley Digital in 2017. We did full-service SEO— content, technical audits, link building, the whole package. By 2023, we had 11 employees and about 40 clients. We were doing really well, making about $80K a month in revenue. **Morgan:** That's solid. **Tom:** It was. But it was also exhausting. I was constantly worried about payroll, about keeping everyone busy, about client churn. And then ChatGPT came out in late 2022, and I saw this opportunity to scale without hiring more people. **Morgan:** So you started using AI for client work. **Tom:** Not right away. First, I just used it for my own productivity. Writing emails, creating outlines, that kind of thing. But then I started experimenting with using it for actual deliverables. Client reports, content briefs, even blog posts. **Morgan:** And it worked? **Tom:** It worked too well. Like, I could create a content brief in 10 minutes that used to take my team 2 hours. I could write a 2,000-word blog post in 20 minutes instead of paying a writer $300 and waiting three days. The efficiency gains were insane. **Morgan:** When did you decide to go all-in on automation? **Tom:** March 2024. I spent like three weeks building this massive library of prompts. I had prompts for keyword research, content briefs, meta descriptions, technical audit reports, link outreach emails— everything we did as an agency, I created a prompt for it. **Morgan:** How many prompts? **Tom:** 347 by the time I was done. I organized them all in Notion with tags and categories. I was so fucking proud of it. I thought I'd built this incredible system. **Morgan:** What did you do with the system? **Tom:** I started using it for everything. And then... [pause] ...then I fired half my team. **Morgan:** Wait, what? **Tom:** I fired six people. Kept five. I told myself I was just "rightsizing" the business, but the truth is I didn't think I needed them anymore. Why pay a content writer $50K a year when I could use ChatGPT for $20 a month? **Morgan:** How did the remaining team react? **Tom:** They were terrified. Like, they knew if I'd fired six people, they could be next. The morale just evaporated. People stopped taking initiative, stopped caring about quality. They were just trying to survive. **Morgan:** Did you notice the morale issue? **Tom:** Not at first. I was too focused on the numbers. We'd just cut our payroll by like $300K a year while maintaining the same client load. On paper, it looked amazing. We went from making maybe $200K profit annually to projecting $500K. **Morgan:** When did things start falling apart? **Tom:** Maybe six weeks after the layoffs. One of our longest-standing clients— a B2B SaaS company we'd worked with for four years— they emailed saying they wanted to cancel. And I'm like, "What? Why?" And they sent me this whole breakdown of problems. **Morgan:** What kind of problems? **Tom:** The blog posts we'd been delivering were generic and repetitive. The keyword research had obvious gaps. The monthly reports were clearly templated with no actual insights. They basically said, "It feels like you're phoning it in." **Morgan:** Were you phoning it in? **Tom:** [long pause] Yeah. We were. I was using AI to generate everything and doing maybe 10 minutes of editing before sending it to clients. The prompts were good, but the output still needed human expertise to be truly valuable. And I wasn't providing that expertise anymore. **Morgan:** Did you try to save that client? **Tom:** I did. I offered them a discount, promised we'd improve quality, the whole thing. They said no. They'd already signed with another agency. **Morgan:** How much were they paying you? **Tom:** $8,000 a month. So that's $96K annually, gone. **Morgan:** Did other clients leave after that? **Tom:** [laughs darkly] Oh yeah. Once the first one left, it was like dominoes. Another client canceled two weeks later. Then another. Then three more in the same week. By the end of June 2024, we'd lost 12 clients. **Morgan:** Twelve? **Tom:** Twelve major clients. That was like $450,000 in annual revenue. In three months. **Morgan:** What was the common complaint? **Tom:** Quality. Every single one said the quality had dropped. Some were more polite about it than others, but the message was the same: "This doesn't feel like the agency we hired." **Morgan:** What did you do? **Tom:** I panicked. Like, full-on panic. I'd fired half my team thinking I was being smart, and now I'm losing clients left and right because the work sucks. And I can't just rehire the people I laid off because they'd all found new jobs. **Morgan:** Did you tell the remaining team what was happening? **Tom:** I had to. They could see clients canceling. So I called an all-hands meeting and basically said, "We have a quality problem and we need to fix it immediately." **Morgan:** What did they say? **Tom:** One of my account managers— Sarah, she'd been with me since 2018— she just looked at me and said, "Tom, we've been telling you there's a quality problem for two months. You didn't listen." **Morgan:** Had they been telling you? **Tom:** [pause] Yeah. They had. Multiple people had flagged concerns about the AI-generated content. But I dismissed them because the clients hadn't complained yet. And by the time the clients started complaining, it was too late. **Morgan:** What did you change? **Tom:** Everything. I stopped using AI for final deliverables. I started actually editing and enhancing the AI output instead of just sending it as-is. I brought in freelancers to help with content because I didn't have enough in-house staff. And I personally got involved in every client account to rebuild trust. **Morgan:** Did it work? **Tom:** Partially. We stopped the bleeding. No more clients left after July. But we didn't get any of the 12 back, and we weren't signing new clients because our reputation was trashed. We went from 40 clients down to 28 in three months. **Morgan:** How did that affect revenue? **Tom:** We went from $80K a month to about $50K. And with my smaller team, I was doing way more of the work myself. I went from being a CEO to being a senior strategist again, which honestly was kind of depressing. **Morgan:** Did you regret firing your team? **Tom:** Every single day. Those people were good at their jobs. They cared about quality. And I let them go because I thought a fucking chatbot could replace them. **Morgan:** Did you try to rehire any of them? **Tom:** I reached out to three of them. Two didn't respond. One responded and said, "No thanks, I'm happy where I am." And I don't blame them. I wouldn't come back either. **Morgan:** What happened to the agency? **Tom:** I shut it down in March 2025. Almost exactly a year after I'd built my prompt library. The math just didn't work anymore. We were barely breaking even, and I was burned out from trying to salvage everything. **Morgan:** That must have been hard. **Tom:** It was devastating. I'd built that agency from nothing. It was my identity. And I killed it by trying to be too clever. **Morgan:** What are you doing now? **Tom:** I'm an AI SEO consultant. Which is deeply ironic. **Morgan:** [laughs] How does that work? **Tom:** I help other agencies figure out how to use AI responsibly. Like, "Here's what I did wrong, don't do this." I teach them how to use AI as a productivity tool without sacrificing quality or firing their teams. **Morgan:** Do people actually hire you for that? **Tom:** Yeah, surprisingly. Turns out a lot of agency owners are tempted to do exactly what I did, and they want to learn from someone who's already failed at it. **Morgan:** How much do you make now compared to when you were running the agency? **Tom:** [pause] Way less. I'm doing maybe $8K to $10K a month as a consultant. Which is like a tenth of what the agency was making at its peak. **Morgan:** Do you regret the whole thing? **Tom:** [long pause] I regret how I did it. I don't regret experimenting with AI. But I regret thinking I was smarter than my team. I regret prioritizing short-term profit over long-term relationships. And I really regret firing people who trusted me. **Morgan:** Have you talked to any of them since? **Tom:** A few. I sent apology emails to everyone I laid off. Some people responded graciously, some didn't respond at all. One person told me to fuck off, which I deserved. **Morgan:** What did you learn from all this? **Tom:** That humans are irreplaceable. AI can help humans work better, but it can't replace expertise, judgment, or genuine care about the work. The second you treat AI as a replacement instead of a tool, you're fucked. **Morgan:** Do you think other people are making the same mistakes? **Tom:** Absolutely. I see agency owners on Twitter all the time bragging about how they're automating everything and cutting staff. And I'm just like, "Cool, see you in six months when your clients are leaving." **Morgan:** Have you tried to warn them? **Tom:** Sometimes. But it's hard to warn someone who's drunk on efficiency gains. They have to learn the hard way, just like I did. **Morgan:** What would you tell your March 2024 self? **Tom:** [pause] I'd say, "Use AI to make your team more productive, not to replace them. And if you're thinking about firing someone, ask yourself if you'd regret it in a year. Because you probably will." **Morgan:** Would 2024 Tom listen? **Tom:** No. I was too arrogant. I thought I'd figured something out that everyone else was missing. Turns out, everyone else was right. **Morgan:** That's pretty humble for someone who used to run a successful agency. **Tom:** [laughs] Yeah, well, failure has a way of making you humble. **Morgan:** Do you think you'll ever run an agency again? **Tom:** Maybe. But not for a while. I need to rebuild my reputation first. And honestly, I need to prove to myself that I can use AI responsibly before I'm in a position of power again. **Morgan:** That's very self-aware. **Tom:** Therapy helps. I've been going weekly since I shut down the agency. **Morgan:** Seriously? **Tom:** Yeah. Losing your business that you built from scratch does a number on you. I needed help processing it. **Morgan:** How's that going? **Tom:** Better. I'm not as angry at myself as I used to be. I'm trying to see it as a lesson rather than a failure. **Morgan:** That's healthy. **Tom:** [laughs] Yeah, well, we'll see. Ask me again in six months. **Morgan:** [laughs] Fair. Alright, I should let you go. Thanks for being so honest about all this. **Tom:** Thanks for giving me space to talk about it. Most people don't want to hear about failure. **Morgan:** That's literally all these interviews are about. **Tom:** [laughs] Well, then I'm your perfect guest. **Morgan:** You really are. Take care, Tom. **Tom:** You too, Morgan. [end] --- ## Key Lessons Learned > **"AI can help humans work better, but it can't replace expertise, judgment, or genuine care about the work. The second you treat AI as a replacement instead of a tool, you're fucked."** **1. Efficiency Gains Masked Quality Decline** Tom could create content briefs in 10 minutes instead of 2 hours and blog posts in 20 minutes instead of 3 days. The speed was real, but the depth, expertise, and client-specific insights disappeared. Clients noticed within weeks. **2. Layoffs Destroyed Team Morale** Firing six of eleven employees signaled to survivors that they were expendable. People stopped taking initiative, stopped caring about quality, and focused solely on self-preservation. The culture collapsed immediately. **3. Humans Were Flagging Problems Tom Ignored** Team members raised quality concerns for two months before clients started canceling. Tom dismissed these warnings because clients hadn't complained yet—by the time they did, 12 were already planning their exit. **4. Client Relationships Are Built on Expertise, Not Efficiency** > **"It feels like you're phoning it in."** Clients didn't hire Bradley Digital for fast turnaround—they hired for strategic thinking and customized solutions. When AI-generated templates replaced human expertise, the value proposition evaporated. **5. The First Cancellation Triggers an Avalanche** One $8K/month client left in May. By end of June, twelve clients ($450K in annual revenue) were gone. Once quality problems become visible, trust erodes across the entire client base simultaneously. **6. You Can't Quickly Undo Layoffs** When Tom realized he needed his team back, they'd all found new jobs. The knowledge, relationships, and expertise he'd eliminated couldn't be quickly rehired or replaced with freelancers. **7. Founder Involvement Can't Scale** Tom went from CEO to senior strategist, personally managing every account to rebuild trust. But one person can't deliver the expertise and attention that six specialists provided. The workload became unsustainable. **8. Reputation Damage Prevents New Growth** Even after stopping client losses in July, Bradley Digital couldn't sign new clients. Industry word-of-mouth about quality problems made sales impossible. Revenue stabilized at 62% of peak but wouldn't grow. **9. The Math Eventually Breaks** Projected profit increase ($200K to $500K annually) never materialized because revenue collapsed faster than costs decreased. By March 2025, the agency was barely breaking even despite having half the original team. **10. Arrogance Prevents Learning Until It's Too Late** > **"I thought I'd figured something out that everyone else was missing. Turns out, everyone else was right."** Tom dismissed his team's concerns, ignored industry skepticism about full automation, and believed he was uniquely smart. Only losing the business broke through his certainty. --- ## About Tom Bradley **Tom Bradley** is a former agency owner turned AI SEO consultant who now helps agencies implement AI tools without sacrificing quality or team morale. After founding Bradley Digital in 2017 and growing it to 11 employees and $80K monthly revenue by 2023, Tom aggressively automated his agency's workflow in 2024—building a library of 347 prompts and laying off half his team. The strategy backfired catastrophically. Within three months, quality complaints led to 12 major client cancellations representing $450K in annual revenue. By March 2025, Tom shut down the agency he'd spent eight years building. > **"I thought I was being smart, and now I'm losing clients left and right because the work sucks."** Tom now consults with agencies on responsible AI adoption, using his failure as a case study for what not to do. He emphasizes that AI should enhance human expertise rather than replace it, and that efficiency gains mean nothing if quality and client relationships suffer. **Tom lives in Austin, is in weekly therapy processing his business loss, and makes about one-tenth of his former agency income as a cautionary tale consultant.** --- *This interview was conducted via video call in November 2025. Tom was forthcoming about both his strategic miscalculations and their emotional impact. The conversation has been edited for clarity while preserving his emphasis on the human cost of automation decisions.*](https://seoprojournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/The-Prompt-Engineers-Confession-Tom-Bradley-on-the-SEO-Shortcuts-That-Backfired-332x332.png)
![# The Prompt Engineer's Confession: Tom Bradley on the SEO Shortcuts That Backfired **Tom:** Can you hear me okay? **Morgan:** Yeah, you're good. Can you see me? **Tom:** I can see you, but you're frozen. Wait— [pause] —there you go. Okay, we're good. **Morgan:** Perfect. So I'm just gonna jump right in. You ran an SEO agency and basically automated yourself into the ground? **Tom:** [laughs] Jesus, that's blunt. But yeah, that's accurate. **Morgan:** Tell me how it started. **Tom:** Okay, so I founded Bradley Digital in 2017. We did full-service SEO— content, technical audits, link building, the whole package. By 2023, we had 11 employees and about 40 clients. We were doing really well, making about $80K a month in revenue. **Morgan:** That's solid. **Tom:** It was. But it was also exhausting. I was constantly worried about payroll, about keeping everyone busy, about client churn. And then ChatGPT came out in late 2022, and I saw this opportunity to scale without hiring more people. **Morgan:** So you started using AI for client work. **Tom:** Not right away. First, I just used it for my own productivity. Writing emails, creating outlines, that kind of thing. But then I started experimenting with using it for actual deliverables. Client reports, content briefs, even blog posts. **Morgan:** And it worked? **Tom:** It worked too well. Like, I could create a content brief in 10 minutes that used to take my team 2 hours. I could write a 2,000-word blog post in 20 minutes instead of paying a writer $300 and waiting three days. The efficiency gains were insane. **Morgan:** When did you decide to go all-in on automation? **Tom:** March 2024. I spent like three weeks building this massive library of prompts. I had prompts for keyword research, content briefs, meta descriptions, technical audit reports, link outreach emails— everything we did as an agency, I created a prompt for it. **Morgan:** How many prompts? **Tom:** 347 by the time I was done. I organized them all in Notion with tags and categories. I was so fucking proud of it. I thought I'd built this incredible system. **Morgan:** What did you do with the system? **Tom:** I started using it for everything. And then... [pause] ...then I fired half my team. **Morgan:** Wait, what? **Tom:** I fired six people. Kept five. I told myself I was just "rightsizing" the business, but the truth is I didn't think I needed them anymore. Why pay a content writer $50K a year when I could use ChatGPT for $20 a month? **Morgan:** How did the remaining team react? **Tom:** They were terrified. Like, they knew if I'd fired six people, they could be next. The morale just evaporated. People stopped taking initiative, stopped caring about quality. They were just trying to survive. **Morgan:** Did you notice the morale issue? **Tom:** Not at first. I was too focused on the numbers. We'd just cut our payroll by like $300K a year while maintaining the same client load. On paper, it looked amazing. We went from making maybe $200K profit annually to projecting $500K. **Morgan:** When did things start falling apart? **Tom:** Maybe six weeks after the layoffs. One of our longest-standing clients— a B2B SaaS company we'd worked with for four years— they emailed saying they wanted to cancel. And I'm like, "What? Why?" And they sent me this whole breakdown of problems. **Morgan:** What kind of problems? **Tom:** The blog posts we'd been delivering were generic and repetitive. The keyword research had obvious gaps. The monthly reports were clearly templated with no actual insights. They basically said, "It feels like you're phoning it in." **Morgan:** Were you phoning it in? **Tom:** [long pause] Yeah. We were. I was using AI to generate everything and doing maybe 10 minutes of editing before sending it to clients. The prompts were good, but the output still needed human expertise to be truly valuable. And I wasn't providing that expertise anymore. **Morgan:** Did you try to save that client? **Tom:** I did. I offered them a discount, promised we'd improve quality, the whole thing. They said no. They'd already signed with another agency. **Morgan:** How much were they paying you? **Tom:** $8,000 a month. So that's $96K annually, gone. **Morgan:** Did other clients leave after that? **Tom:** [laughs darkly] Oh yeah. Once the first one left, it was like dominoes. Another client canceled two weeks later. Then another. Then three more in the same week. By the end of June 2024, we'd lost 12 clients. **Morgan:** Twelve? **Tom:** Twelve major clients. That was like $450,000 in annual revenue. In three months. **Morgan:** What was the common complaint? **Tom:** Quality. Every single one said the quality had dropped. Some were more polite about it than others, but the message was the same: "This doesn't feel like the agency we hired." **Morgan:** What did you do? **Tom:** I panicked. Like, full-on panic. I'd fired half my team thinking I was being smart, and now I'm losing clients left and right because the work sucks. And I can't just rehire the people I laid off because they'd all found new jobs. **Morgan:** Did you tell the remaining team what was happening? **Tom:** I had to. They could see clients canceling. So I called an all-hands meeting and basically said, "We have a quality problem and we need to fix it immediately." **Morgan:** What did they say? **Tom:** One of my account managers— Sarah, she'd been with me since 2018— she just looked at me and said, "Tom, we've been telling you there's a quality problem for two months. You didn't listen." **Morgan:** Had they been telling you? **Tom:** [pause] Yeah. They had. Multiple people had flagged concerns about the AI-generated content. But I dismissed them because the clients hadn't complained yet. And by the time the clients started complaining, it was too late. **Morgan:** What did you change? **Tom:** Everything. I stopped using AI for final deliverables. I started actually editing and enhancing the AI output instead of just sending it as-is. I brought in freelancers to help with content because I didn't have enough in-house staff. And I personally got involved in every client account to rebuild trust. **Morgan:** Did it work? **Tom:** Partially. We stopped the bleeding. No more clients left after July. But we didn't get any of the 12 back, and we weren't signing new clients because our reputation was trashed. We went from 40 clients down to 28 in three months. **Morgan:** How did that affect revenue? **Tom:** We went from $80K a month to about $50K. And with my smaller team, I was doing way more of the work myself. I went from being a CEO to being a senior strategist again, which honestly was kind of depressing. **Morgan:** Did you regret firing your team? **Tom:** Every single day. Those people were good at their jobs. They cared about quality. And I let them go because I thought a fucking chatbot could replace them. **Morgan:** Did you try to rehire any of them? **Tom:** I reached out to three of them. Two didn't respond. One responded and said, "No thanks, I'm happy where I am." And I don't blame them. I wouldn't come back either. **Morgan:** What happened to the agency? **Tom:** I shut it down in March 2025. Almost exactly a year after I'd built my prompt library. The math just didn't work anymore. We were barely breaking even, and I was burned out from trying to salvage everything. **Morgan:** That must have been hard. **Tom:** It was devastating. I'd built that agency from nothing. It was my identity. And I killed it by trying to be too clever. **Morgan:** What are you doing now? **Tom:** I'm an AI SEO consultant. Which is deeply ironic. **Morgan:** [laughs] How does that work? **Tom:** I help other agencies figure out how to use AI responsibly. Like, "Here's what I did wrong, don't do this." I teach them how to use AI as a productivity tool without sacrificing quality or firing their teams. **Morgan:** Do people actually hire you for that? **Tom:** Yeah, surprisingly. Turns out a lot of agency owners are tempted to do exactly what I did, and they want to learn from someone who's already failed at it. **Morgan:** How much do you make now compared to when you were running the agency? **Tom:** [pause] Way less. I'm doing maybe $8K to $10K a month as a consultant. Which is like a tenth of what the agency was making at its peak. **Morgan:** Do you regret the whole thing? **Tom:** [long pause] I regret how I did it. I don't regret experimenting with AI. But I regret thinking I was smarter than my team. I regret prioritizing short-term profit over long-term relationships. And I really regret firing people who trusted me. **Morgan:** Have you talked to any of them since? **Tom:** A few. I sent apology emails to everyone I laid off. Some people responded graciously, some didn't respond at all. One person told me to fuck off, which I deserved. **Morgan:** What did you learn from all this? **Tom:** That humans are irreplaceable. AI can help humans work better, but it can't replace expertise, judgment, or genuine care about the work. The second you treat AI as a replacement instead of a tool, you're fucked. **Morgan:** Do you think other people are making the same mistakes? **Tom:** Absolutely. I see agency owners on Twitter all the time bragging about how they're automating everything and cutting staff. And I'm just like, "Cool, see you in six months when your clients are leaving." **Morgan:** Have you tried to warn them? **Tom:** Sometimes. But it's hard to warn someone who's drunk on efficiency gains. They have to learn the hard way, just like I did. **Morgan:** What would you tell your March 2024 self? **Tom:** [pause] I'd say, "Use AI to make your team more productive, not to replace them. And if you're thinking about firing someone, ask yourself if you'd regret it in a year. Because you probably will." **Morgan:** Would 2024 Tom listen? **Tom:** No. I was too arrogant. I thought I'd figured something out that everyone else was missing. Turns out, everyone else was right. **Morgan:** That's pretty humble for someone who used to run a successful agency. **Tom:** [laughs] Yeah, well, failure has a way of making you humble. **Morgan:** Do you think you'll ever run an agency again? **Tom:** Maybe. But not for a while. I need to rebuild my reputation first. And honestly, I need to prove to myself that I can use AI responsibly before I'm in a position of power again. **Morgan:** That's very self-aware. **Tom:** Therapy helps. I've been going weekly since I shut down the agency. **Morgan:** Seriously? **Tom:** Yeah. Losing your business that you built from scratch does a number on you. I needed help processing it. **Morgan:** How's that going? **Tom:** Better. I'm not as angry at myself as I used to be. I'm trying to see it as a lesson rather than a failure. **Morgan:** That's healthy. **Tom:** [laughs] Yeah, well, we'll see. Ask me again in six months. **Morgan:** [laughs] Fair. Alright, I should let you go. Thanks for being so honest about all this. **Tom:** Thanks for giving me space to talk about it. Most people don't want to hear about failure. **Morgan:** That's literally all these interviews are about. **Tom:** [laughs] Well, then I'm your perfect guest. **Morgan:** You really are. Take care, Tom. **Tom:** You too, Morgan. [end] --- ## Key Lessons Learned > **"AI can help humans work better, but it can't replace expertise, judgment, or genuine care about the work. The second you treat AI as a replacement instead of a tool, you're fucked."** **1. Efficiency Gains Masked Quality Decline** Tom could create content briefs in 10 minutes instead of 2 hours and blog posts in 20 minutes instead of 3 days. The speed was real, but the depth, expertise, and client-specific insights disappeared. Clients noticed within weeks. **2. Layoffs Destroyed Team Morale** Firing six of eleven employees signaled to survivors that they were expendable. People stopped taking initiative, stopped caring about quality, and focused solely on self-preservation. The culture collapsed immediately. **3. Humans Were Flagging Problems Tom Ignored** Team members raised quality concerns for two months before clients started canceling. Tom dismissed these warnings because clients hadn't complained yet—by the time they did, 12 were already planning their exit. **4. Client Relationships Are Built on Expertise, Not Efficiency** > **"It feels like you're phoning it in."** Clients didn't hire Bradley Digital for fast turnaround—they hired for strategic thinking and customized solutions. When AI-generated templates replaced human expertise, the value proposition evaporated. **5. The First Cancellation Triggers an Avalanche** One $8K/month client left in May. By end of June, twelve clients ($450K in annual revenue) were gone. Once quality problems become visible, trust erodes across the entire client base simultaneously. **6. You Can't Quickly Undo Layoffs** When Tom realized he needed his team back, they'd all found new jobs. The knowledge, relationships, and expertise he'd eliminated couldn't be quickly rehired or replaced with freelancers. **7. Founder Involvement Can't Scale** Tom went from CEO to senior strategist, personally managing every account to rebuild trust. But one person can't deliver the expertise and attention that six specialists provided. The workload became unsustainable. **8. Reputation Damage Prevents New Growth** Even after stopping client losses in July, Bradley Digital couldn't sign new clients. Industry word-of-mouth about quality problems made sales impossible. Revenue stabilized at 62% of peak but wouldn't grow. **9. The Math Eventually Breaks** Projected profit increase ($200K to $500K annually) never materialized because revenue collapsed faster than costs decreased. By March 2025, the agency was barely breaking even despite having half the original team. **10. Arrogance Prevents Learning Until It's Too Late** > **"I thought I'd figured something out that everyone else was missing. Turns out, everyone else was right."** Tom dismissed his team's concerns, ignored industry skepticism about full automation, and believed he was uniquely smart. Only losing the business broke through his certainty. --- ## About Tom Bradley **Tom Bradley** is a former agency owner turned AI SEO consultant who now helps agencies implement AI tools without sacrificing quality or team morale. After founding Bradley Digital in 2017 and growing it to 11 employees and $80K monthly revenue by 2023, Tom aggressively automated his agency's workflow in 2024—building a library of 347 prompts and laying off half his team. The strategy backfired catastrophically. Within three months, quality complaints led to 12 major client cancellations representing $450K in annual revenue. By March 2025, Tom shut down the agency he'd spent eight years building. > **"I thought I was being smart, and now I'm losing clients left and right because the work sucks."** Tom now consults with agencies on responsible AI adoption, using his failure as a case study for what not to do. He emphasizes that AI should enhance human expertise rather than replace it, and that efficiency gains mean nothing if quality and client relationships suffer. **Tom lives in Austin, is in weekly therapy processing his business loss, and makes about one-tenth of his former agency income as a cautionary tale consultant.** --- *This interview was conducted via video call in November 2025. Tom was forthcoming about both his strategic miscalculations and their emotional impact. The conversation has been edited for clarity while preserving his emphasis on the human cost of automation decisions.*](https://seoprojournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/The-Prompt-Engineers-Confession-Tom-Bradley-on-the-SEO-Shortcuts-That-Backfired-688x387.png)
