There is a lot of noise about AI at the moment. Some of it is genuine, some of it is hype, and the people selling you something have an interest in making you believe the hype. Here is a plain account of where AI actually makes a difference for small businesses right now, and where it does not.
We see this regularly. A business invests in automation, the implementation goes technically fine, and then nothing really improves. Sometimes things get worse. The reason is almost always the same: they automated a broken process.
The AI vendor landscape right now is crowded with products that are, to put it plainly, a user interface placed over a general-purpose AI model with a monthly subscription attached. Some of those products are fine for what they are. Many of them are sold as something they are not. Here is how to tell the difference.