Where to start with AI in a small business: a 5-question checklist
Before you buy another AI tool, answer these five questions to find the workflow where AI will actually save your team time.
"We should be using AI" is a common feeling in small businesses right now. What's less common is a clear answer to where. These five questions help you find a starting point that pays off, rather than one that just looks impressive.
1. What does your team do more than 20 times a week?
AI earns its keep on volume. A task that takes five minutes but happens 50 times a week is worth far more attention than a clever one-off. Common candidates: answering similar customer emails, entering data from documents, writing up meeting notes, and qualifying leads.
2. Is there a "right answer" someone can check?
The best early projects have outputs a person can review in seconds: is this summary accurate? is this invoice coded correctly? Avoid starting with tasks where quality is subjective or mistakes are expensive and hard to spot.
3. Where does the information already live?
If the inputs are already in a system — your inbox, CRM, help desk, or accounting software — AI can be connected directly. If they're scattered across people's heads and sticky notes, fix that first.
4. Who will own it after it's built?
Every automation needs someone who notices when it drifts. Name that person before you start. If nobody can own it, it isn't the right first project.
5. How will you know it worked?
Pick one number to watch — hours saved per week, response time, error rate — and measure it for a week before changing anything.
Putting it together
Score each candidate workflow against the five questions. The one with high volume, a checkable output, data already in a system, a clear owner, and an easy metric is your starting point.