Rejecting clients based on how you wish the world would be is a strategy that only works when you don’t care about the money or you have so many clients that you can pick and choose.
Running a services business has always been about being able to identify trends and adapt to market demand. Every small business I know has been adapting to trends or trying to stay ahead of them from the start, from retail to product to service businesses.
Sure, but it seems here that they are rejecting everything related to AI, which is probably not a smart business move, as they also remark, since this year was much harder for them.
The fact is, a lot of new business is getting done in this field, with or without them. If they want to take the "high road", so be it, but they should be prepared to accepts the consequences of worse revenues.
Is it though? We don't know the future. Is this just a dip in a growing business, or sign of things to come? Even if AI does better than the most optimistic projections it could still be great for a few people to be anti-ai if they are in the right place selling to the right people.
Without knowing the future I cannot answer.
Rejecting clients when you have enough is a sound business decision. Some clients are too annoying to serve. Some clients don't want to pay. Sometimes you have more work than you can do... It is easy to think when things are bad that you must take any and all clients (and when things are bad enough you might be forced to), but that is not a good plan and to be avoided. You should be choosing your clients. It is very powerful when you can afford to tell someone I don't need your business.