AI Automation Strategy
What should AI actually do in your business?
Not “what’s your AI story” — what should it do, on a Tuesday, in your actual operation. Somewhere in your week there’s work nobody should be doing by hand anymore: data re-keyed between systems, quotes assembled from the same parts every time, an inbox somebody triages before the real work starts. An AI Automation Strategy engagement finds that work, figures out the least expensive sane way to hand it off — which is very often a tool you already pay for — and gets one small pilot running before anybody commits to anything bigger.
How we find the work
- 01 — The look
It starts with watching how work actually happens, not with a tool demo. We sit with the people who do the jobs and trace the repetitive stretches: what gets copied where, what gets typed twice, which task everyone groans about on Fridays. No AI vocabulary is required or used at this stage. If a task is frequent, rule-based, and boring, it’s a candidate; if it needs judgment or a relationship, it stays human and goes on the do-not-automate list — which is a real list, and it ships with the plan.
- 02 — Buy before build
Here’s the advice that saves the most money, delivered on a real consult call when a client wondered about building a custom patient portal: the platform she was already paying for had one built in. Turning that on cost nothing. Building it fresh would have cost a serious five-figure sum. Most businesses are in the same position somewhere — the booking system, the accounting software, the CRM you already run very likely shipped automation and AI features while nobody was looking. The plan’s first move is always to inventory what you already own. Custom is the last resort, and when it’s genuinely warranted, it gets quoted like everything else: cost and timeline first, in writing.
- 03 — Pilot small
Whatever makes the cut gets proven on one workflow, low-stakes, measured, before it spreads. Because here’s the honest read on this generation of tools, chatbots included: some are rough, some are good, and they’re getting better fast — which is exactly why you pilot before you commit, and why nothing customer-facing launches without a human watching its output first. A pilot that fails cheap is a success of the process. A rollout that fails expensive is a pitch that skipped the pilot.
Axiom IndustriesConstruction Companies
Elance SteelConstruction Companies & Contractors
PDS IncHealth Care
When the answer is a rebuild, this is the shop
Not every engagement ends in one. When it does, the work lands here — browse it before you decide who to call.
Short, ordered, honest
You get a short written plan: the workflows worth automating, in order; the tool for each — starting with what you already own; what each is expected to save, labelled as the estimate it is; and the do-not-automate list, with reasons. If any custom work is genuinely called for, it arrives priced and scheduled separately, and you say go or no-go with the numbers in front of you. The plan is written to be actionable by you, with or without us.
Sometimes the answer is “nothing yet”
There is a lot of money being made right now telling businesses they’re behind on AI. We’re not in that business. We use these tools every day ourselves, which is exactly why our recommendations run small: the honest answer to “what should we do about AI” is sometimes one automated workflow, sometimes “turn on the feature you already pay for,” and sometimes — for some businesses, this year — nothing yet. If that’s the read, you’ll get it in writing, and it will have cost you one conversation.
You’ll also notice this page has no client roster and no percentage improvements on it. The four pages this one replaced were full of impressive numbers; we couldn’t stand behind them, so they’re gone. When we have automation stories worth telling, they’ll appear here with names attached.
Where this comes from — and where it goes
A lot of engagements start one door over: leaders take an AI training session first, and the automation candidates surface in the room. And a surprising amount of “automation” turns out to be a website job in disguise — a form that routes itself to the right inbox, a catalogue that imports itself overnight — which is ordinary website work for us. Everything consulting-shaped is under Digital Strategy.
Start with the boring part
Tell us the task your team complains about most — the one that eats an afternoon every week and requires no judgment, just patience. We’ll tell you honestly whether it’s automatable, with what, and whether the tool is something you already own. If the whole answer fits in a reply email, you’ll get it in a reply email, free.