AI in business

In a small company AI is mainly useful for taking away repetitive work: writing and answering emails, summarising documents, preparing quotes and proposals, answering customers' frequently asked questions and organising information. It doesn't replace anyone overnight, and you don't need to be a big company to make the most of it: it saves odd hours here and there that, added up over the month, show in your calendar and in your nerves.

It usually comes in at three levels. The first, each person using an AI chat in their daily work. The second, the tools you already have (email, office software, the customer management program), which increasingly come with AI built in. The third, automations or custom-built tools. What confuses many managers is believing you need a big project to start or, on the contrary, that it's enough to tell the team "use ChatGPT" without any rules. The latter carries a clear risk: client data put where it shouldn't be. And without measuring time before and after, it's impossible to know whether it pays off.

I work with AI both in my own systems and in clients', and what interests me most is what can be set up without big budgets. In "Artificial intelligence in your business without launching a project" I describe three small uses with a quick return, how to get them running in a week and what they deliver, before spending on consultancy or development.