Finding Where AI Fits in Your Business

Posted on Oct 31 • Edited on Oct 31 • Originally published at scdisoft.com

Many conversations about AI start with a tool. Someone has tried a chatbot, seen a demo, or heard that a competitor is using AI, and the question becomes where the business could use it too.

That question tends to produce long lists of ideas and few results. A more useful starting point is the work itself: where it slows down, where it piles up, and where mistakes keep happening.

Some of those problems are a good fit for AI, especially work that involves reading, sorting, or interpreting information that arrives in many different forms. Others are better solved with a simple rule, an integration between two systems, an automated workflow, or a change to the process. Telling them apart before choosing a tool puts the effort where AI makes a real difference.

The following sections outline one way to find where AI fits, rule out where it does not, and choose a first task worth testing.

In most businesses, the slowest and most error-prone work happens between systems rather than inside them. Information arrives by email, sits in a PDF or spreadsheet, and has to be read, interpreted, and entered somewhere else by a person. That person is doing the work of a connection that does not exist.

These tasks are often so familiar that nobody questions them. They are simply how the work gets done.

It helps to ask the people who do the work rather than only the people who manage it. They know where the workarounds are and how long they actually take.

Good candidates for AI are often tasks like sorting emails, pulling details from documents, matching records across systems, or drafting documents from existing material. They tend to share a few characteristics:

Example. A property management company receives maintenance requests from tenants by email and through a web form. Tenants describe the problem in their own words: "water under the sink" or "something is leaking in the cabinet." A coordinator reads each one, decides whether it is plumbing, electrical, or general repair, judges how urgent it is, and assigns it to the right vendor. The requests are frequent, the wording varies, and each one needs a small amount of interpretation. AI can suggest the category and urgency, and the coordinator confirms or adjusts it. The coordinator still makes the decision, but no longer has to start from a blank screen on every request.

AI is probably not the right starting point when:

Ruling out a task is a useful result. It narrows the list to the opportunities that are worth the effort, and it often surfaces simpler fixes that can be made right away.

Before deciding a task needs AI, check whether a simpler fix would solve it. A simpler fix is usually cheaper to build, more predictable, and easier to maintain.

None of these require AI. Some are ordinary automation, and some need no new software at all.

Example. An office manager copies every new order from the online store into the accounting system. The orders already arrive as structured data, with the same fields every time. Nothing about the task requires interpretation. This is an integration problem, not an AI problem, and connecting the two systems would remove the work rather than speed it up.

Compare that with a distributor that receives price updates from dozens of suppliers, each in its own spreadsheet layout with its own column names and product codes. Someone has to work out which column is which and match each product to the distributor's catalog. The inconsistency is the problem, and that is where AI can help, with a person reviewing the matches before the prices are updated.

The two tasks look similar from a distance. Both involve copying information from one place to another. The difference is whether the work requires interpretation.

Once a task looks like a good candidate, describe it clearly before comparing AI products or vendors. A short written description makes it easier to judge whether the opportunity is real and to explain it to the people who will approve it.

If any of these cannot be filled in, the opportunity is not ready yet. The information is especially worth settling early, since whether it includes confidential data often determines which AI services and setups can be used. The options for limiting what an AI service receives are covered in Using AI With Private Business Data.

A rough estimate of value helps compare opportunities against each other and against the cost of building them.

Start with the time the task takes today. Multiply the hours per week by the cost of the people doing the work, and project it across a year. For example, a task that takes eight hours a week, at a staff cost of $35 an hour including taxes and benefits, adds up to about $14,560 a year.

AI rarely removes a task entirely, especially when a person still reviews the result. A more realistic estimate assumes part of the time is saved. If the AI suggestion cuts the time in half, the value in this example is closer to $7,280 a year.

Time is not the only measure. Some opportunities are worth more for what they prevent or enable:

Keep in mind that time saved gives staff room for other work. It does not necessarily reduce payroll, so treat it as added capacity unless the business actually plans to reduce hours.

With a few candidates described and estimated, choose one to test first.

The best one to start with has measurable value, a point where a person reviews the result, and information the business is comfortable sending to an AI service. It also:

It is tempting to start with the largest opportunity. A smaller one with a clear measure of success is often the better first choice, because it shows whether AI works with the information and people the business already has before a larger commitment is made.

The next step is usually a small proof of concept that tests the task on real examples against agreed success criteria. That process, and how to add the result to an application the business already runs, is covered in Adding AI to an Existing Application Without Rebuilding It.

The most useful AI projects begin with a specific task that is slow, repetitive, or error-prone, not with the question of where to use AI. The goal is to choose the simplest approach that fixes that task. For work that involves reading and interpreting varied information, that approach is often AI.