AI for your business

Every business has tasks that eat time without creating value. Formatting reports. Chasing updates. Rewriting the same email for the tenth time. AI is built for exactly this kind of work.

The question is not whether AI can help your business. It is where to start.

Five questions to find your best opportunities#

Before you automate anything, run your daily work through these five questions:

Is it repetitive? Tasks you do the same way every week are prime candidates.
Is it text-based? AI handles text brilliantly - emails, reports, summaries, data entry, proposals.
Is the cost of a mistake low? Start with tasks where an error is easy to catch and fix, not ones where a mistake costs thousands.
Does it take longer than it should? If a task takes 30 minutes but should take 5, AI can probably close that gap.
Would a smart assistant help? If you would hand this to a capable intern, you can probably hand it to AI.

If a task scores yes on three or more of these, it is worth testing.

Examples by business function#

Sales - Draft follow-up emails, summarize call notes, research prospects before meetings, generate proposal first drafts.

Operations - Write standard operating procedures from rough notes, summarize incident reports, draft client updates, create checklists from long process documents.

Finance - Summarize financial reports for non-finance stakeholders, draft variance explanations, generate board-ready summaries from raw data.

HR - Write job descriptions, summarize CVs against role requirements, draft onboarding materials, create training content from existing documentation.

Marketing - Generate content ideas, draft social posts, repurpose long content into short formats, write ad copy variations for testing.

Start small, prove value, expand#

The biggest mistake businesses make with AI is trying to transform everything at once. Do not do this.

Pick one task. One person. One week. Automate it, measure the result, and decide whether to expand. This is how real transformation happens - not in a big bang, but in small, proven wins that build confidence.

The 80/20 rule#

In most businesses, 20% of processes generate 80% of the wasted time. Find that 20%. These are your highest-value targets. A single well-chosen automation can save hours every week, and those hours compound.

Exercise: List 5 tasks you or your team did this week that felt like busywork. Run each one through the five questions above. You will likely find at least 2 that AI can handle.

Check your understanding#

Question: What are the five questions for finding AI opportunities?

Is it repetitive? Is it text-based? Is the cost of a mistake low? Does it take longer than it should? Would a smart assistant help? If a task scores yes on three or more, it is worth testing.

Question: Why start with one task instead of transforming everything at once?

Real transformation happens through small, proven wins that build confidence. Pick one task, one person, one week - automate it, measure the result, then decide whether to expand.

Question: How does the 80/20 rule apply to automation?

In most businesses, 20% of processes generate 80% of the wasted time. Find that 20% - those are your highest-value targets, and a single well-chosen automation can save hours every week.

Next steps#

Prepare your team for the shift: The Transformation Mindset