[DESK NOTES — Janay, drop your personal hello for the first issue here. This is the one part I never write for you.]
THE PULSE
57% of U.S. small businesses are investing in AI this year, up from 36% just two years ago. And the people getting the most out of it, managers saving 7.2 hours a week versus 3.4 for everyone else, aren't using it more. They're pointing it at better things. (Business.com + Dialog, survey of 1,009 U.S. small-business workers.)
THE TRIAGE
Here's what that number actually means: using AI stopped being your edge. More than half the businesses you're competing with already do it. The gap now isn't who uses AI, it's who aims it well.
And most people aim it at the visible stuff. Captions, content, a prettier post. That's the front of the house. Meanwhile the back, the leads that don't get answered, the follow-ups nobody sends, the quotes that sit, still runs on you and your memory.
That's the expensive miss. The front of the house was never where your business was leaking. The operating core was. Point AI there and the same tool everyone has starts paying you back double, the way it does for those managers.
I did exactly this in my own company. I stopped using AI to make more things and started using it to catch what we were already dropping: every lead answered, every follow-up sent, without anyone having to remember. That one shift moved revenue more than any content ever did.
THE MOVE
This week, don't add another AI content tool. You have enough.
Instead, name the one task that's repetitive, low-judgment, and quietly eats your week: following up, scheduling, quoting, chasing a status. Point one AI tool at that. Just one.
Aim, don't accumulate. That's the whole difference between the people saving seven hours and the people saving three.
See you next Monday.
Janay