This week, I found myself recommending AI to two different clients.
They weren't looking for rapid growth, fancy technology, or a complete overhaul of their businesses. They were simply overwhelmed by administration.
Both businesses had reached a familiar stage where there was too much work for the owner to comfortably manage, but not enough to justify hiring. The admin load was growing, but unpredictable. One week might be busy, the next might be quiet.
Traditionally, business owners in this position had limited choices. You either grin and bear it until the business grows bigger, or you look at bringing on a virtual assistant to help manage the workload.
Today, there's a third option.
AI Creates New Opportunities for Small Businesses
In both cases of a tradie business and a small creative production business, the biggest frustrations are not technical or about difficulties delivering services or products.
The pain points were emails and quotes.
Responding to enquiries. Preparing proposals. Following up. Managing inboxes. Handling repetitive communication.
These tasks are important, and they also tend to follow a reasonably predictable process. The wording may change, but the intent is often the same.
This is where AI can be particularly valuable.
Unlike adding another team member, AI can scale almost instantly. Whether you're receiving five enquiries a week or fifty, the underlying process doesn't necessarily change. The volume changes, but the workflow often remains the same.
For many business owners, that's an exciting shift.
Instead of waiting until you can justify another salary, there may be opportunities to automate parts of the process much earlier, reduce overload and create capacity within the business.
The Real Advantage Is Predictability
When I assess opportunities for automation, I look for tasks that are repetitive and predictable.
If the process follows roughly the same pattern each time, there's a good chance that technology can help.
That doesn't mean removing humans from the process. The goal is to allow people to spend less time on routine tasks and more time making decisions, solving problems, and building human relationships.
The great news is that businesses likely to benefit most from AI aren't necessarily the largest businesses. They're often the businesses where owners are spending hours every week performing the same tasks repeatedly.
AI Still Requires Investment
One of the biggest misconceptions I hear is that AI is a "set and forget" solution – but it's definitely not.
Implementing AI properly requires some of the same thinking you'd apply when hiring a new employee. You don't employ someone on Monday and expect them to understand your business by Tuesday. You invest time in training. You explain your processes. You establish expectations. You create checks and balances.
AI is much the same. So for high-quality outcomes, you need to teach how your business operates, what good looks like, and where the boundaries are.
That investment upfront is often where the real value is created.
Context Matters More Than Workflows
One of the most valuable lessons I've learned from conversations with local AI specialists is that jumping straight into workflows can be a mistake.
Before automating anything, it's essential to understand the wider context.
What is the purpose of the task?
What could go wrong?
Where are the risks?
Where does human judgement remain critical?
Not every process should run completely unattended. In fact, many shouldn't.
The best implementations identify clear control points where human oversight is required. Those checkpoints help ensure quality, accuracy, and accountability remain in place.
Preserving What Makes Your Business Unique
The business owners I work with take pride in the way they do things. Their communication style. Their client relationships. Their approach to problem-solving. And that can make AI feel a little confronting at first.
I've experienced this myself as writing is a skill I learned many many years ago and I'm good at it. In particular the nuances.
But now AI has got to know me a bit better over time, sometimes it produces an email, proposal, or response that sounds remarkably like something I would have written. Surprisingly often, it articulates an idea more clearly than I could have explained it myself.
That can be both impressive and slightly unsettling.
But the reality is that AI doesn't replace your uniqueness - it reflects what you've taught it.
So the real work isn't getting AI to generate content – it's directing so your brand, your values, and your way of doing things is consistently represented.
You Still Have to Drive the Bus
One of my new AI contacts repeated a phrase several times during our conversations: "You have to drive the bus."
I think that's a great way to think about AI. The technology can help with the heavy lifting. It can automate processes, handle repetitive tasks, and create efficiencies. But you still need a driver. You still need someone setting the direction, making decisions, applying judgement, and monitoring outcomes.
Could you learn how to build the entire system yourself? Absolutely. Just as you could learn to build a bus.
But for most business owners, that's probably not the highest-value use of their time. Often, it's better to focus on driving the bus and let specialists help build it.
Looking for Opportunities in Financial Processing
These conversations have also prompted me to look at my own clients through the same lens.
In financial processing, I'm still asking the same questions I always have, but now I'm also viewing them through an AI lens:
Which tasks are repetitive?
Which processes are predictable?
Where are the bottlenecks?
Where could automation create capacity?
Where must human oversight remain?
I don't believe AI is about replacing people. I believe it's about helping good people spend more time doing the work that truly adds value. For many small businesses, that could be one of the most important opportunities we'll see over the next few years.
The challenge isn't deciding whether AI is coming. The challenge is deciding how to use it safely, thoughtfully, and in a way that genuinely supports the business you're building.