Big Ideas,
Real Impact
Once a week, you will receive an email newsletter with information for entrepreneurs who are ready to capture ROI from adopting AI. It's a look at what works in the real world.
Ask Your People Before You Automate
Most automation decisions are made by looking at a process from the outside and picking the steps that appear repetitive. That is a reasonable place to start. But it misses something important, which is what the people doing the work would actually like to hand over.
The Highest Opportunities for ROI Are Often Hidden
Every owner I talk to feels some version of the same pressure. Competitors are talking about AI. Customers are asking about it. Somebody at a conference described a result that sounds impressive. The worry that the business is falling behind is real.
If I Turn Off AI Training on Our Data, Can I Enter Confidential Information?
No, not based on that setting alone. Turning off AI training is a good step, but there is more to the story.
The Value of Knowing Your Business
Most owners assume the hard part of adopting AI is choosing the technology. It usually is not. The models, and the platforms used to build AI assistants, are widely available, and your competitors can buy the same ones you can. What cannot be bought is knowing your own operations well enough to point AI at the right problem.
Three Companies the Same Size, Years Apart
Over the past several months I have had detailed conversations with owners and executives about where AI actually is being used inside their businesses. What surprised me most was how little the company size impacted their progress with AI adoption.
Bad Data Kills Good AI
An AI pilot project runs for a few months, and the results we expect don’t show up. The conclusion is that AI just didn’t work in our business. But what went wrong?
Measuring AI Performance
Most AI reporting measures activity. How many people have licenses, how many prompts were run, how many documents were processed. Activity is easy to count and it tells you almost nothing about whether the AI budget you’ve allocated is working. There is a better measure. What does it cost us to produce one successful outcome?
We’re Replacing Our Accounting System. Should We Wait on AI?
Partly yes. But most companies are unaware there is part they should take care of immediately.
Adoption Scales Through Your Managers
Technology scales through systems. Adoption scales through people, and specifically through the supervisors and department leads between you and the front line.
AI Belongs in the Workflow
Here is a pattern worth recognizing. A company buys AI licences, runs training, and a few months later usage has quietly dropped by everyone except a handful of enthusiasts. The tool worked. People used it during the pilot. Then it faded.
Someone in Your Company Has Already Figured This Out
In nearly every company I visit there are two or three people who have quietly worked out how to make AI genuinely useful. They are rarely the people you would guess.
Will This AI Do What I Need?
Most proposed AI solutions describe what the system will do. Fewer describe the activities that surround it, and that is usually where the difference lies between a proposal that works and one that simply doesn’t meet expectations.