Most small teams that ask me about AI have the same worry: "We're behind, and we don't know where to begin." The good news is that you do not need a strategy deck. You need one process.
Look for the boring, repeated task
The best first project is something that happens every week, follows roughly the same steps and makes someone on your team sigh. Typical candidates are answering the same customer questions, turning meeting notes into tasks, sorting incoming emails, or copying numbers from one place to another.
Use a simple test
Ask three questions about the task:
- Does it repeat? If it happens once a year, automating it will never pay off.
- Is a wrong result cheap to fix? Start where a mistake costs you a minute, not a client.
- Can you describe the steps in plain words? If you can write them on a napkin, a tool can usually follow them.
If a task passes all three, it is a good first candidate.
Start small and measure
Pick one task, run it with a tool for two weeks, and write down how long it used to take and how long it takes now. That single number tells you more than any report. If it works, move to the next task. If it does not, you have lost two weeks, not a year.
What not to do first
Do not start with your most sensitive data, your most complicated process or your most important client. Earn confidence on something low-risk, then grow from there.
A short conversation is often enough to find the right first task. That is exactly what an AI Readiness Call is for.
