Hey. Hope you had a great week!

Every week I dig through the AI news to find the updates and ideas that are actually useful for running a small business. This week, one story in particular caught my attention because it may make you feel a little better about not jumping on the AI agent bandwagon just yet.

Let's jump in.

There's a lot of excitement around AI agents and "digital coworkers" that can work across software, manage workflows, and complete tasks with less human involvement.

It can also make you feel like you're falling behind if you haven't started using them. Here's the good news: you're probably not behind.

A new Deloitte survey found that 75% of business leaders want to use AI "digital coworkers," but only 15% have successfully scaled them across their organizations.

The technology isn't necessarily the problem.

Businesses have messy data. Information lives in different systems. Workflows haven't been designed with AI in mind. And companies still need rules around what AI can do, when it needs human approval, and how employees should oversee it.

In other words, you can have a very capable AI agent, but if the business processes underneath it are a mess, you're just going to automate the mess.

This is an important reality check for small business owners.

You don't need to rush out and implement an AI agent just because everyone is talking about them. In fact, there may be more value in getting the basics right first.

Take a look at one process in your business that you do repeatedly. Maybe it's onboarding a new client, following up on leads, preparing invoices, or moving information from one system to another.

Ask yourself:

If the answer to those questions is no, that's the work to tackle first.

The technology is moving quickly, but the harder work is getting the rest of the business ready for it.

Companies will need to break down data silos, redesign workflows around what AI can actually do, put guardrails in place for when it goes off track, and train people to use and oversee it.

That's not as flashy as launching an AI agent. But it's what will make the technology useful.

There's another trend worth understanding when you think about how much AI to use: not every task needs the most powerful model available.

Tech companies are developing what's called "model routing," which automatically sends simpler tasks to less expensive AI models while reserving more powerful models for work that actually requires them.

You probably don't need to know which model is handling your request. But the underlying idea is worth knowing.

Think about it like this: You wouldn't hire a highly specialized consultant to answer a question that your office manager could handle in five minutes.

AI can work the same way.

A simpler model may be perfectly capable of summarizing a meeting or drafting a routine email. A more powerful model might be worth the additional cost when you're asking it to analyze a complicated business problem or handle a more involved task.

The goal isn't to use the cheapest AI. It's to use the right level of AI for the job.

And as AI becomes more integrated into the software we use, understanding this will become increasingly important. You may not choose the model yourself, but the software companies you use will be making those decisions behind the scenes.

AI isn't just getting smarter. It's becoming more capable of doing actual work.

But that doesn't mean you should immediately hand over your business processes to an AI agent.

The more practical approach is to understand your work well enough to know:

Get the business ready before you automate the business.

And one more thing worth knowing: AI isn't only showing up in Google's Chrome browser. Firefox has rolled out a new Smart Window with optional AI search and tab organization, while allowing users to choose the model and what data it can access.

The bigger trend is clear: AI is implemented in most of the technology we use every day. So you don't need to chase it. You need to understand it enough to make good decisions about where it belongs in your business, and how it’s used.

That's it for this week. Hopefully this gives you a clearer picture of what's changing in AI and a few ideas you can actually use in your business.

See you next week with more practical AI updates.

Yours in success,
Kathleen

P.S. Forward this to one business-owner friend who’s still “figuring out AI.” You’ll look like the smart one. 😊