Behind Unpaid Expertise: Why People Expect Your Brain for Free
How the digital age and AI change the value of knowledge—and what to do about it
A CEO worth eight figures once sent me a LinkedIn message asking to “pick my brain about his thought leadership strategy over coffee.” Their company had just raised $40 million in Series B funding. Their office has a cold brew tap.
He offered to buy me coffee. At the Starbucks in his building.
While I could rant about cheap clients all day, I won’t. Instead, let’s talk about why companies invest millions in executive visibility, yet still expect seasoned strategists to give away decades of expertise for the price of a latte.
Think about it:
Companies pay five-figure monthly agency retainers, typically in addition to their in-house communications departments.
They spend six figures on C-suite thought leadership programs.
Then, a CEO, impressed by your work, expects a free consultation on content strategy and wants to “bounce some quick ideas” off someone who’s not on their payroll.
I’ve worked across the communications ecosystem, and I’ve watched this pattern evolve from mild annoyance to “Houston, we have a problem.” I better understand the complex web of psychology, economics, and social dynamics at play—one that becomes even more fascinating (and frustrating) in the age of artificial intelligence.
The Internet Broke Our Value Compass, and AI Can Help Restore It
There’s a curious psychology at work: Traditional professional services command respect (and fees), while many people seem to devalue communications expertise, no matter how crucial. Now that AI can do the front-end heavy lifting for many communications deliverables, seasoned expertise is even more valuable.
Yet, the cognitive dissonance around professional fees is fascinating. Consider:
A lawyer’s $500 hourly rate? “Expected.”
An accountant’s $400 tax consultation? “Standard.”
A therapist’s $300 session? “Investment in health.”
A communications strategist’s $400 advisory fee? “Can’t we just grab coffee?”
The “economics of free” has created three devastating myths:
Information and expertise are the same thing (they’re not).
If something is shareable, it should be free (it shouldn’t).
Digital=unlimited=worthless (basic economics disagrees).
We can’t let this gap continue to grow, even though psychology amplifies our expectations for “free stuff.” Humans are cognitive misers, especially at the executive level.
Our brains evolved to conserve energy, so we instinctively hunt for intellectual shortcuts. AI only exacerbates this instinct to make things easier and could further undermine the true value of expertise. When I give what seems like a “quick edit” on an executive’s thought leadership piece, it represents the decades it took to curate my expertise and ability to easily spot the difference between “ordinary insight” and “industry-changing perspective.”
It’s the ultimate cognitive illusion: When expertise appears seamless, maybe even easy, we assume it should come without a price tag.
The Digital Paradox of Visibility Becoming Vulnerability
Remember when getting expert advice required an actual appointment? Those were simpler times. Now, social media allows people to crowdsource advice. This isn’t always a bad thing, as LinkedIn has turned expertise into content, but it does create an expectation of accessibility and entitlement.
Here’s the trap, though: The more value you share online, the more people expect for free. It’s digital-age irony—your “thought leadership” becomes an open invitation for unlimited consultation.
Experts are simultaneously more visible, accessible, and taken for granted than ever, yet also more essential in a world drowning in unfiltered information and increasingly reliant on AI.
Plot Twist: How AI Makes Human Expertise More Valuable (Not Less)
You might assume ChatGPT and its AI cousins would democratize expertise and reduce these imbalances. After all, here’s finally a "brain" you can pick 24/7 that won't passive-aggressively remind you about its hourly rate or worry about being labeled "difficult" for setting boundaries, right?
But AI hasn’t solved our expertise equity problem. Instead, it’s added a new twist to an old story.
The validation economy: People use AI to generate answers, then come to experts asking “Is this right?” It's like having a calculator but still needing someone who understands math to check if you're solving the right problem.
Context is king (or queen): AI can tell you what but struggles with why. It can suggest marketing tactics, but can't tell you if they’ll resonate with your specific audience or align with your brand's voice. That contextual wisdom? That’s pure human territory.
The metacognition gap: AI gives answers but doesn’t teach you how to think. As one client told me, “ChatGPT gave me 10 marketing strategies. You helped me understand why nine of them would fail for my business.”
Strategic integration: The real value isn’t in getting AI-generated answers—it’s in knowing how to integrate them. Think of it as the difference between having ingredients and knowing how to cook a meal.
AI creates a new hierarchy of expertise. As basic information becomes more accessible, premium human expertise shifts toward:
Strategic thinking
Contextual analysis
Pattern recognition
Judgment calls
Creative synthesis
As AI expedites the ability to retrieve, research, and draft information, it’s even more critical to tap experts for their experience, insight, and wisdom and ensure that value is reflected in their compensation (not a latte).
The New Rules of Knowledge Exchange
We know the “pick your brain” economy is broken. There’s a better way forward, but it won’t be easy to reset expectations around the value of expertise. While not every knowledge seeker may agree, it’s imperative they understand they’re paying for my years of experience, not the 30 minutes spent chatting over coffee.
For fellow experts like myself:
Create clear value tiers. Posted content=free. Consultation=paid.
Stop apologizing for pricing your wisdom.
Brand “brain picking” what it is: consulting.
For knowledge seekers:
Treat expertise like any professional service. (Would you ask a lawyer to review contracts over coffee?)
Do your homework first. (Yes, including AI tools.)
Be prepared to implement what you learn.
Value signal over noise—it’s worth paying for quality insights.
As AI-generated content proliferates, curated expertise is the ultimate premium product. And no, a pistachio latte won’t cover it.