It’s too soon for AI tactics

Hey everybody,

Here’s the TL;DR: Most companies are confused as to why/when/how to deploy AI in the company.

→ Do you want someone to analyze your business and build you an actionable AI roadmap for yours? Reply to this email, and I'll connect you with them for an intro call.

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Here’s the long version.

A few weeks ago I sent out a newsletter on how small businesses are using AI. Since then, the team I’m mentoring has had another dozen+ conversations with business owners.

It’s exposed a huge problem that every business needs to understand, whether you’re thinking AI or any other hyped technology: 

In any hype cycle, the gap between pitch and reality is enormous.

Doing interviews, the AI team I’m mentoring kept hearing versions of: "I know I should be doing something with AI. I just don't know what."

Business owners see the big picture vision just fine. They get it. Hiring great people is hard. Automation sounds amazing. 

But when they actually try to deploy stuff like voice agents, automated customer service, etc, it falls apart fast.

It’s horror stories all the way down, and they end up ripping out AI systems after a few weeks because they just sucked.

There are two main reasons this happens:

You need to figure out what your business actually needs, not what the vendor is selling. Or what worked for some Silicon Valley startup you saw on Twitter. 

In my experience, technology is most useful when you start with a clear operational problem and work backwards to a solution. 

Think like your customer

So far the team has been looking into voice AI solutions. That was what people said they were deploying now.

The biggest hurdle, by far, is that end customers hate it. 

The businesses that have successfully deployed voice AI basically use it as a preliminary step that hands off to a human within 90 seconds. That's it.

Why? Because talking to an AI makes people feel disrespected. It's the same feeling you get when you call a company and reach a call center where the rep clearly doesn't speak fluent English. You feel like they didn't invest enough to care about you.

That’s why the only industry deploying full-scale AI customer service right now is healthcare. 

Why?

Because you’re stuck with them. And their real customer is your insurance company or employer.

So if any “improvement” makes your customers feel like second-class citizens, it’s a liability to your brand. 

Customer experience is everything. 

When they pick up the phone, they want to be heard by someone. 

So those first seconds are critical. Does the AI voice agent position itself as a fast-track to a human resolution? Or is it just a high tech “Press 0 to hear your options again”?

This feels exactly like 1995 internet to me.

People could imagine online banking and ordering taxis from your phone… but we were still hand-coding HTML and your modem cut out when someone picked up the phone. 

That's where AI is right now.

Everyone can see the future. Digital employees. Fully automated customer service. Internal processes that run themselves. But the technology isn't there yet. We're stupid early.

(The one exception: ChatGPT or Claude on your desktop. That actually works. That's where 95% of real AI value is today.)

There's real money to be made being early to a trend. But there's also a graveyard of companies that were too early and burned through all their cash before the tech got there.

Your job as a business owner is knowing the difference. 

And to be honest, beyond personal productivity tools, you're probably too early for most applications of AI.

Here’s one way to think about it: 

Imagine you wait six months on a technology. Will your competitors gain an advantage, or will waiting six months save you from being a guinea pig for an immature product?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

But in my experience, the second scenario is far more common than the first.

So here’s what I’m seeing:

Business owners keep coming back to, "What should my AI strategy be?"

And there’s the need. Not help with a specific tool or tactic, but help with a strategy. They want someone to look at their specific business, understand their workflows, and tell them what actually makes sense.

So I'm mentoring a team calling themselves Fixed Labs, and they’re doing exactly this — AI audits for small businesses.

They come in, interview your team, map your data flows, identify where things are working and where they're not, and give you a real strategy. Not a sales pitch. An actual roadmap for what you should (and shouldn't) be doing with AI in your business.

Here’s the ASK: Do you want someone to analyze your business and give you an AI roadmap for your company? Reply to this email, and I'll connect you with them for an intro call.

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What's your biggest question about AI in your business? Hit reply and let me know.

Thanks for reading!

Michael

P.S. Fixed Labs is looking for their first handful of clients. If you're interested in being one of them, you'll get a lot of personal attention and a very honest assessment of where AI actually makes sense in your operation. Email back and I’ll connect you with our CEO, Manuel.

P.P.S. Are you a holdco owner? If so, I encourage you to check out my lecture this Thursday on Year-End Tax Savings for HoldCos, with CPA Mark Edler.