Your First AI Project Should Be High ROI and Boring
3 Keys to Build Meaningful Momentum
The best way to get started in the AI Implementation race is to just get started. Use the 3 keys outlined below to guide you.
You already believe AI is going to matter for your business. You've seen enough to be sure it can help. What you’re not sure about is exactly how it’s going to help, or how you’ll get there. You’re unclear on which tools, which tasks, what it'll cost, and what it'll change.
A lot of owners get stuck between "I know this matters" and "I know what to do." They read blog posts, they watch demos, and they wait for the picture to get clearer, so they can act and act confidently.
The problem is that watching from the sidelines rarely provides the type of clarity you need or the confidence you’re really seeking.
The good news is that you don't need the full picture to begin, and you're better equipped to begin without it than you might think.
You don't need to know how it’s all gonna play out
Nobody can tell you in advance every way AI will help your business. Not a vendor, not a consultant, and not me. The specific uses show up once you start using it on real tasks, in your real business, with your real customers.
You've handled this kind of uncertainty before. You signed a lease before you knew what revenue would look like. You made your first hire without knowing for sure you could keep them busy. You set prices, launched services, and said yes to customers before you had every answer. Running an independent business means making reasonable decisions with incomplete information, adjusting as you learn, and moving forward anyway.
Adopting AI takes the same skill. Most of the people waiting for certainty haven't had nearly as much practice working without it as you have.
(This is a good place to pause and think of a decision you made in your business without knowing how it would turn out. How did you handle it, and what did you learn once you were in motion?)
Start with the work you'd happily never do again
The best first project isn't a big transformation. It's one tedious, repetitive task that eats your own time every week.
A few good candidates:
Replying to leads and customers. Many of the questions you get are the same few questions asked in different words. AI can draft a reply based on how you've answered before. You edit it and send it, and the whole thing takes a fraction of the time.
Following up on past-due invoices. Chasing overdue payments with customers and vendors is necessary, uncomfortable, and repetitive. AI can draft polite, firm follow-ups on a schedule so they stop slipping through the cracks.
Answering staff questions. If your team keeps asking how to handle a refund, where a collection of resources are stored, or what the overtime policy is, those answers belong in an internal knowledge base your staff can ask directly, not in your head. (Bonus: “Self-serve” employee onboarding is a massive win for companies that implement it properly).
Why start with your own time? You know better than anyone how things work, so you'll see right away whether the implementation is correct and having the intended effect(s).
You’ll also start getting a feel for the capabilities of AI tools and the underlying models that fuel them, which will make you even more comfortable with the next implementation.
Having been in leadership roles for over 15 years, it’s hard to describe the joy of trusting that something is getting done without it requiring my full time & attention. The beauty of the AI age is that now you’re able to delegate responsibility to a combination of people and technology.
Here's a simple test, and just one way to identify a candidate for AI: if you’ve had your day interrupted by some question or request that you could answer or resolve without expending much mental energy, you can probably automate at least 80% of that responsibility.
For example: I have my AI agents draft many of my email replies to customers, partners, etc. … but I review a lot of them before sending. AI can learn how I respond and can write 80% like me (without sounding like boring boilerplate) but I occasionally need to add that personal touch. It still saves me at least an hour a day, on average.
Making it stick matters more than going big
It's tempting to wait for better conditions: a slower season, the "perfect" tool, a complete plan. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that “perfect conditions” don’t actually exist. The AI landscape also changes incredibly quickly — with updates to existing tools plus new entrants arriving every day — so a perfect plan you made today would be out of date before you finished carrying it out.
More important, the size of your first change matters far less than whether it lasts. A small automation you're still using every day six months from now is worth more than some huge new workflow your team abandons a few weeks in. A habit that lasts keeps saving you time and makes the next change easier. An abandoned project leaves you with a bill and a team that's increasingly skeptical of the next proposal.
“The size of your first change matters far less than whether it lasts.”
To make a change stick:
Pick one task you want to replace or supplement with AI.
Use one tool for it every time that task comes up, for at least a few weeks.
Keep rough track of the impact (time-savings, ease of use). Adjust the implementation as necessary.
Once the new approach has become routine, move on to the next task.
This has long been the approach I take to any desired behavioral change, in myself or in team members. In the military, they call it the OODA loop: Observe-Orient-Decide-Act. Simply reading about AI and watching demos without applying any of it will succeed in nothing except wasting weeks or months. You find out how well something works in your business by using it and setting it up to work for you.
Where to begin
You don't need a perfect strategy, a big budget, or a clear view of the next five years. When you got started in your current business, I’m guessing you didn’t have a clear roadmap with every question answered… but you likely felt (even subconsciously) that you knew enough to make good progress, and that you’d figure everything else out as needed.
You need to
pick a few “low-hanging fruit” items to simplify and streamline
get the right tools in place, and
commit to the change until it's simply how you work
If you’re anything like other business owners I know, once you streamline the first couple things, you’ll immediately start to see the next great opportunities as the picture becomes increasingly clear.
But it rarely becomes clearer just thinking about it.
If you'd like help, my AI Tools Assessment is precisely designed for those who are ready to take action. In this risk-free assessment, we’ll identify the highest ROI candidates in your company’s existing operations that can be streamlined or completely automated with the help of AI.
Learn more about buying back your time with AI here.
