AI Lens
AI news, hot topics, advancements, and discussions about how AI is reshaping business and society.
Your focused view on the emerging hot topics in the Age of A.I.
AI Lens
Episode 5: AI for Small And Medium Businesses: Accessible Tools Delivering Quick Wins
AI Lens —Your Focused view on the emerging hot topics in the Age of AI!! We provide AI news, hot topics, advancements and discussions about how AI is reshaping business and society.
Season 1 Episode 5:
What if I told you a small business can now do—on a Tuesday—what used to take a full marketing team, a customer service department, and a junior analyst… with tools that cost less than a monthly cell phone bill?
Today we’re talking AI for small and medium businesses—no theory, no hype—real tools delivering quick wins.
We’re going to map out how small and medium businesses (SMBs) can use AI right now to save time, increase output, and—most importantly—see results fast.
Because the big shift is this: AI stopped being “enterprise-only.” It’s no longer locked behind six-figure consulting contracts and giant IT departments.
Here’s the simplest way to say it:
· The expensive part of AI used to be building it.
· Now, the expensive part is often just deciding what to automate first.
Today’s episode roadmap:
1) Why AI levels the field
2) Budget-friendly agentic tools and no-code platforms
3) Quick wins: content, customer service agents, basic forecasting
4) SMB success stories from 2025–2026 adopters
5) Overcoming barriers: cost, skills, integration
6) 2026 predictions: more “vibe coding” and pre-built agents
7) Takeaways: 3 tools to try immediately
This is episode five AI for small and medium businesses, accessible tools delivering quick wins. All right. You're listening to AI Lens, your focused view on the emerging hot topics in the age of AI. We provide AI news, hot topics, advancements, and discussions about how AI is reshaping society and business.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Liz, today I'm very excited because we're doing something very specific. We're going to map out how small to mid-sized businesses can use AI right now to save time, increase output, and most importantly, see results fast. Because the big shift is this AI stopped being enterprise only. It's no longer locked behind six-figure consulting contracts or giant IT departments.
SPEAKER_00:The expensive part of the of AI used to be building it. That's what costs so much money. Now the expensive part is just deciding what to automate first. And we're going to solve that in this episode.
SPEAKER_01:I think before we get started, let's set some expectations. A lot of business owners already use AI for practical work, right? So you see, like, say content, but we also cover support, operations, and forecasting, things that directly affect cash cash flow and capacity. So today's roadmap, why AI levels the field, budget-friendly, agentic tools, and no-code platforms, quick wins, content, customer service agents, basic forecasting, small to mid-size business success stories from the 2025-2026 adopters, overcoming barriers. So cost, skills, uh like integration, 2026 predictions, because we love our predictions, more vibe coding and pre-built agents, some of which we talked about in yesterday's podcast. And finally, takeaways, three tools to try immediately.
SPEAKER_00:All right, let's get into the tool stack. Let's start with budget-friendly agonic tools and no code platforms. When people say AI, they often imagine a chat bot, but the real SMB unlock is something slightly different. We shift from a chat to a do. This is actually doing things and making decisions. A chat bot answers, they respond. An agent can answer and then take steps, like creating a draft, updating a spreadsheet, routing a request, or kicking off a workflow. Now, John, why don't you start off with some quick definition in SMB language?
SPEAKER_01:So agenic means AI that can follow a goal or an outcome through multiple steps, usually with guardrails. So think take new leads from my website, categorize them, draft a reply, and log them into my CRM. Some of these things we talked about yesterday, but this might help clarify things a little bit better. So I think this the small to mid-sized business friendly way to build agenic systems is to combine these three particular building blocks. Number one, a brain, an AI model you can talk to. Number two, a conveyor belt of sorts, like automation workflows. And then finally, three, your business inputs, the docs, the FAQs, the forms, email, spreadsheets.
SPEAKER_00:That's how you train your AI.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. And how you build agenic systems. Yep.
SPEAKER_00:All right. So let's name some practical options. Let's start with bucket one: custom mini experts that you can reuse. If you use Chat GPT, one of the fastest wins in building a custom GPT is basically a replica assistant that follows your instructions and can use your uploaded references. Open AI describes GPTs as custom versions of Chat GPT that's actually tailored by combining your instructions, knowledge, and capabilities.
SPEAKER_01:I think the key here is you're not starting from scratch every single time. So it's a huge time saver and it builds further expertise the more often you use it. It further customizes it itself into your tone, starts to understand what you're looking for more and more. So the output becomes better and better. So an example would be a custom assistant named My Sales Follow up Assistant. So you feed it your offers, your pricing rules, the tone, your FAQs, and a few examples of your best follow-ups. Now you can generate consistent on-brand follow-ups without staring at a blank page.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, now bucket number two is no code automation platforms. We'll call this the conveyor belt.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, if you want AI to do work across tools, use a no-code automation platform. So two common approaches. One you may have heard of, it's more common, Zapier, usually the quickest first win. Lots of integrations already built into their system, a very straightforward setup. And then make it's a visual builder that can be great for more complex flows and control.
SPEAKER_00:So Zapier is often the quickest, the first win. Make can be amazing when you want more control and more complex flows.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:All right. Bucket three customer support AI agents, where SMBs see ROI fast. If you have a repeat, if you have repeat questions that come up in your business, you can deploy an AI support agent.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the nice thing is this will handle a repetitive front line while humans kind of handle more of a nuance. So you get that lift in that it can kind of take away those basic answers. You know, the key idea here is you don't need to invent AI. What you want are pre-built systems you can fine-tune and configure.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So there are like quick win use cases that we can go over. If you want ROI fast, if you want a return on your investment, you can pick use cases that are one, frequent, two, repeatable, three, low risk, and four easy to measure the results. Here are examples of three different examples that you can use. Quick win number one, content creation without sounding generic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, most SBs don't need more content. What they need is consistent content that matches their voice and turns into leads primarily, right? So with a simple 20-minute setup, now we're gonna really start to get into it where you can actually see some, put together something quickly and get some wins. Create a simple one-page voice and offer sheet. Who we are, who we serve, maybe five pain points we solve, five offers, and the tone, friendly, direct, premium, playful. You pick one. So examples, paste three real posts or emails you wrote that worked. Then use your AI assistant to produce five social posts, one email newsletter, one landing page draft, and 10 ad uh headline variations. So the win isn't AI wrote something, the win is I ship marketing output this week.
SPEAKER_00:Right. It gets things done. And remember, platforms are actively making this easier and easier. Rudders gave an example on how do you say that?
SPEAKER_01:I can never say anything.
SPEAKER_00:Rudders, right? Example of Shopify generating store layouts from keywords is the same concept. So if any of you have ever put up products on Shopify, you know you can make your store look amazing with just some keywords. This reduces time between ideas and publishing.
SPEAKER_01:Now, another quick win is customer service agents for FAQs, plus order status, plus basic triage. So customer service is often the fastest yes for small to medium businesses of what we found in our discussion. So, and the reason it is is because it's very measurable. You know, it can it can actually reduce the number of tickets, you get a much faster response, fewer interrupt interruptions to your day, and better after hours coverage. So with the three-layer support approach, number one, you have it set up so that AI answers from your knowledge base, your FAQs, your policies, and any other content that it can that it can divulge, or sorry, ingest that you can upload. Number two, AI collects info. So order number, photos, issue type. And then finally, you can train AI to escalate to a human with a summary. So again, takes off that that burden of the simple answers and escalates when needed. So Liz, do you have an idea of what a MIDI skip could look script could look like?
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Like a customer, a customer may ask, where's my order? AI may say, happy to help. What's the email used at checkout or the order number? And then after it's typed in or provided by verbally, AI can say, got it. And here's the status. It can look up the status of that order number. And then it can ask the customer, if you want, I can also start a return or connect you to a specialist. Even if your agent only deflects 20 to 30% of repeat questions, that's real time back to your employees.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. All right. So we've given two examples. Let's go for another one here, Liz. So quick win number three. Let's do basic forecasting. So for sales, staffing, inventory, not necessarily anything fancy. You know, forecasting.
SPEAKER_00:The basic things you need in a business is to plan and budget. So this would be great.
SPEAKER_01:Blocking and tackling, right? So forecasting sounds intimidating, but really, you know, small to midsized business forecasting can be fairly simple. I mean, it can be as simple as what's likely to happen next week. What do I need to order? When will cash get tight, right? So the lightweight method is just export the last 12 months of sales by week or orders or appointments, maybe leads. Simply add notes for promotions, holidays, seasonality, and then ask AI to summarize patterns and suggest a simple forecast. And then use the forecast to set reorder points or maybe staffing targets. Again, this isn't about predicting perfectly, it's about being less surprised.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, those are quick win examples. Now, I want to prove that this isn't just a hypothetical. Let's hit some real stories. So, SMB success stories, small, medium business success stories from 2025 adopters. Let's share a few stories that show what's possible when small and mid-sized teams use AI as leverage. John, why don't you start?
SPEAKER_01:I think a good one was you know, a family-owned shop gets viral reach because they leverage AI assisted marketing. So small business used AI to help script and shape the short video ad, and the result reached a massive audience and drove real traffic.
SPEAKER_00:So the lesson I believe that's a tamale business in LA, right? Is that the example you're talking about?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. And the lesson is the point isn't to go viral, right? The point is AI compresses creative production time so you, as a small to mid-sized business, can compete for attention. So that's a good one. What about you, Liz? Do you have any good stories?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there is a Shopify story. There was Shopify AI Store Builder actually reduced friction for merchants. It was reported that Shopify's AI Store Builder generates multiple store layouts, images, and texts from keywords, which have helped merchants reduce the time and resources required to design the site. If you're a small to medium business owner and you want fewer setup, you know, hardships on your to deal with, AI is removing that setup headache.
SPEAKER_01:You know, another good one too is agent-heavy go-to-market experiments, right? So some organizations are experimenting with AI agents to automate tasks that used to require, like, say, larger teams. So whether you love it or hate it, the trend is clear. Agents are going to become digital coworkers, period. So if it's working, why isn't everyone do it? Well, let's talk about some barriers. So I think the barriers that come to mind really are cost, skills, and then integration issues. So most small timid sized businesses don't fail at AI because AI doesn't work. They really fail because adoption gets stuck, these three obstacles. So, Liz, you want to cover barrier number one?
SPEAKER_00:Sure. That's cost confusion. People assume that AI is expensive. I suggest you start with one workflow tied to a measurable outcome. Examples might be reducing inbound support volume, publish three pieces of content per week, or reducing time to create proposals. Once you can say, wow, this saved me three hours in this week, the cost conversion changes. So what kind of example can you think of, John?
SPEAKER_01:Well, so the next one we're going to talk about skills, but one thing that comes to mind is what you talked about yesterday in our podcast that owners think they need a some sort of specialized prompt engineer. What you really need are two documents, not a PhD, right? Your voice on an offer sheet, as simple as that, right? So a simple process map for one workflow, like lead comes in, it's qualified, it gets a response, and it gets logged. So again, you don't have to overthink this. It's just a matter of really making sure that you leverage AI to take all of this workflow off of your plate.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And another problem it can solve would be integration headaches. People think that's a barrier, that you know, trying to integrate AI into their current workflow is just going to be too difficult. You know, small to medium businesses, they have what we wouldn't, you know, call duct tape stacks, Gmail, Google Sheets, QuickBooks, a scheduling tool, a CRM that some of them barely use. Um really what they want is the one path rule. Pick one path that matters, like a lead intake. Take it from form to spreadsheet CRM and have it auto-draft a reply and then notify you. That's a win. If you're having your AI take the form, put it in the spreadsheet and CRM, draft a reply, and then let you know about it, that saved you time. And that's a repetitive task that can be taken over. Now, let's go forward, John. We've talked about some of the barriers and and how really there's our solutions. What kind of changes do you think we should expect in 2026? Here we are, January 5th, 2026. We're about ready to go to CES. We're gonna arrive. I'm gonna arrive tonight, you're gonna be there tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And let's talk about before we actually see what's out there that's new in the tech field. What are your predictions? You know, like we can talk about vibe coding and pre-built agents. Tell me your thoughts about it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, how about we make those two predictions? We talked about it yesterday a little bit, so let's dovetail off of that. Yeah, I'm confident that those two will be you know front and center in 2026 because they're already happening, right? So prediction number one.
SPEAKER_00:Vive coding is when AI codes itself.
SPEAKER_01:When you when you speak it into existence, you basically give a verbal prompt and it sits there and codes itself. Yes. So vibe coding makes building tools radically more accessible. You don't have to be a software engineer or computer scientist specialist. So more owners and operators can build internal tools and do build internal tools by describing their intent in plain language. So you can create things, dashboards, intake forms, simple apps without traditional development cycles. That's being done right now. And it's only going to get simpler to do, and the output's gonna get more, had to be able to handle more and more complex tasks. So I think prediction number two is the pre-built agents that you mentioned.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, one thing we need to bring up on Instagram, it was reported, I think, yesterday, yes, that Claude was coding for 30 for the last 30 days using only AI in one aspect.
SPEAKER_01:The lead developer of Claude Code literally had Claude code itself over tens of thousands of lines, and he didn't code anything. So and it was for the last 30 days. Now let's clarify. But there's no reason to think that it didn't happen. And we also talked about the Google software engineer who compressed a year's worth of time for her and her team into like what was it, like a couple of hours?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, in an hour. In one hour, AI coded what it would have taken her team a year to do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thank you for clarifying. Yeah, pretty remarkable. And and that was uh something she directly said. So, all right, so prediction number two, pre-built agents become the default. So instead of building agent from scratch, small to mid-sized businesses will choose for menus. So let's say that you want a support agent, for instance, or a sales follow-up agent, or maybe an onboarding agent, or how about a finance slash admin agent? So as agents become more powerful and specialized, though, it is important to talk about guardrails because those do, in fact, matter tremendously. So you need to set these up and think through, or bring somebody on board that can help you out, such as us, with permissions, understanding data access, human approval steps, audit logs, all critical components and making sure that the AI works as you intend it to. But keep in mind, guys, the the upside is huge. Pre-built agents compressed deployment time from and like we just talked about, in that case, from years to hours, but typically from months to days.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So let's go into some takeaways. Three tools to try immediately. So for people who aren't already using AI, let's go through some tools that they can start using to get used to it and start implementing it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I think three tools they can try as soon as this week is practical, affordable, and fast to implement. So tool number one, a reusable AI assistant for your most common repeat work. So try this today. Create an assistant called, I don't know, my business assistant. Load your FAQ, your pricing rules, your service descriptions, and tone examples, or whatever set of documents that you think might make sense based on what you wanted to do. Then use it in this instance, for instance, to drop proposals, write follow-ups, and generate social content in your voice and see what it does.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that would be great. Another tool would be a custom GPT for your most common repeated work. Another tool, Zapier or Make for one end-to-end workflow. Zapier's AI tooling is built to add AI steps into automations across their across different apps. So you can make offers a visual way to orchestrate uh AI and automation. If you're not familiar with make, you want to check it out because it does offer a pretty unique tool. So something you can try, automate a lead response. Just try it, see how it goes. Even if you keep a human approval step for the response, it will be great. So what you would do is you would do a form submission, like we talked about before, then maybe having it entered into a spreadsheet or CRM, and then having AI draft the reply that you approve, and then it gets sent out. So even with that guardrail, you would save a ton of time. And then I think the last tool, and John, you can go into this, would be a customer service AI agent for repeated questions that you get.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you can you can program it with store hours, how you handle returns, shipping status, appointment rescheduling, and escalate anything complex, right? So the the cool the whole point here is to start with something simple, get familiar with it. If you hit a roadblock, then you can always ask how to overcome the roadblock once you once you can talk about, you can give it what outcome you're trying to achieve. And it can help you work through all those different issues. But you start with something simple and you start stacking these simple wins, and all of a sudden you're going to start automating more and more of your business and seeing greater and greater value. And it's amazing what happens when, say, three to six months down the road, if you're consistent with this, how much different your business can look.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. All right. For a quick recap, let's let's hit some of the key points. Number one, AI is leveling the field for small to mid-size businesses. It's not huge enterprises anymore. You it is being democratized so that these tools that have been available and expensive for big enterprises, now small to mid-size businesses can take advantage of them and really change their business in the sky's the limit, guys. It really is.
SPEAKER_01:Another I think I think democratization is a great way of putting it. Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it basically you don't have to be a huge company with all the money, resources, and employees to do this.
SPEAKER_01:Or you don't have to be like have crazy tech skills to do it either, right? So it's it's so simple to do now. And you know what? I another thing I would add is starting with quick wins, right? Again, creating content, maybe creating a support agent, helping out with basic forecasting, all simple things. Then get some quick wins, and you can start stacking those wins so that you can start seeing better and better value.
SPEAKER_00:And understand, I you know, another takeaway, the future is more about vibe coding and more pre-built agents. So you don't need to be a computer software engineer. AI codes. And it it now it's just going to be managing how it's coding. And you'll have pre-built agents available very soon where you can hire an AI receptionist agent to answer your phones, you know, to transfer calls, to answer questions about store hours and basic information about your business. This is out there right now. If you want, we can also give you more information as we're heading into CES, right? That's another big takeaway. John and I are going to be at CES. We're gonna know what's going on, what's coming down in tech, what are the hot topics, and you should tune in to hear that. We'll be there starting tomorrow, and we will be putting it on our podcast.
SPEAKER_01:So AI, robotics, etc., quantum computing, possibly, all things that will interact and absolutely shape our future. So excited to see what the cutting edge looks like tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And this isn't something that business owners need to be intimidated by anymore. It is turning into plug and play. So until next time, thanks for listening to AI Lens, where your focused view on the emerging hot topics in the age of AI. We provide AI news, hot topics, advancements, and discussions about how AI is reshaping business and society. Make sure to follow, subscribe, and share this episode with someone who is curious about where AI is headed next. Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and keep your lens focused on the future.
SPEAKER_01:Hi, everyone.