20 Practical AI Wins for Small Business (That You Can Start This Month)

Low Effort / Immediate Impact

These are "self-serve" wins. With just a little bit of Training & Coaching on how to prompt effectively, your team can start doing these tomorrow using tools they already have (like ChatGPT or Copilot). Think of AI here as a "speed-drafter."

• The Email Tone Check: Paste a frustrated draft email you wrote to a difficult client and ask AI to "rewrite this to be professional, firm, but kind." It removes the emotion so you can hit send faster.
• The "Wall of Text" Summary: Paste a massive email chain or a long PDF report and ask for a "3-bullet summary of the decision points and action items."
• Meeting Minute Cleanup: Take your messy, shorthand notes from a client call and ask AI to "format these into a clean Client Recap email with next steps."
• Excel Formula Fixer: Instead of Googling for 20 minutes, describe what you want your spreadsheet to do (e.g., "Highlight rows where the date is past due") and ask AI to write the formula for you.
• Social Media Variations: Paste the details of a project you just finished and ask for "5 different LinkedIn posts highlighting our speed of delivery."
• Role-Playing Difficult Conversations: Before a performance review or a tough sales call, have a manager "practice" with ChatGPT to refine their talking points.
• Jargon Translator: Paste a technical explanation from a vendor or engineer and ask AI to "explain this in plain English so I can forward it to the client."

Medium Effort / High Consistency

When you need consistency—or you need the AI to know your specific rules—you build a Custom Assistant. This is a secure, internal chatbot loaded with your documents and guidelines. Think of this as a "Junior Specialist" who has read all your handbooks.

• The Proposal Drafter: Upload your best past proposals and pricing structures. Your sales team can say, "Draft a proposal for Acme Corp focused on the Gold package," and get a result that matches your brand voice perfectly.
• The "How Do I...?" Ops Bot: Load your Employee Handbook and SOPs. New hires can ask, "How do I request time off?" or "What is the per diem for travel?" without interrupting the Office Manager.
• The Safety/Compliance Checker: Upload your safety manuals or code requirements. A technician can ask, "What are the clearance requirements for X equipment?" and get an instant citation.
• The Brand Voice Editor: A tool specifically for your marketing team that reviews blog posts or emails and critiques them against your specific Brand Style Guide.
• The Job Description Generator: Upload your org chart and cultural values. Managers can ask for a JD for a new role, and the assistant drafts it using your standard company structure.
• The RFP Analyzer: Feed a complex 50-page Request for Proposal (RFP) into the assistant and ask it to extract the timeline, budget requirements, and "gotcha" clauses.

Medium-High Effort / "Invisible" Speed

This is where we connect systems together. These run in the background without you having to click anything. Think of this as an "Assembly Line" that runs 24/7.

• Web Form → Smart Triage: When a "Contact Us" form arrives, AI reads the message, categorizes it (e.g., Sales vs. Support vs. Spam), and routes it to the right person’s Slack or Teams channel immediately.
• The "Meeting to Action" Flow: When a Zoom recording finishes, an automation transcribes it, extracts the action items, and saves them to a draft email or your project management tool.
• Invoice Data Extraction: When a vendor invoice arrives in a specific inbox, AI reads the PDF, extracts the amount, date, and vendor name, and drafts an entry in your accounting software for approval.
• Project Kickoff Setup: When a deal is marked "Won" in your CRM, the automation creates the project folders, drafts the Welcome Email for the client, and creates the task list for the project manager.
• The "Ghosting" Check-in: If a lead hasn't responded in 5 days, the system drafts a polite, context-aware follow-up email and puts it in the rep's "Drafts" folder for review (never auto-send without review!).
• Weekly Status Compiler: On Friday morning, the automation pulls completed tasks from your project tool and drafts a "Weekly Progress Report" for the Ops Manager to review.

You don’t need to do all of these. In fact, you shouldn't. The BAQS philosophy is to pick one headache—the thing your team complains about most—and solve that first.

• If your team is stressed by blank pages, start with Training.
• If your proposals are messy and inconsistent, build a Custom Assistant.
• If your leads are falling through the cracks, build a Workflow Automation.

Not sure which one will give you the best ROI? That’s exactly what we help you figure out in a Strategy Session.