AI for small business
AI for small business, without the hype.
What AI is realistically good for in an office of 5 to 45 people, where it goes wrong, a staff policy you can adopt this week, and the questions to ask any vendor about your data.
Sample data · “Your Business”, Oxford, AL
Quick answer
What can AI actually do for a small business?
Today AI is dependable at reading and drafting: summarizing long documents, writing a first draft of an email, pulling the fields off an invoice, and answering questions from your own records. It is not dependable at facts it cannot look up, math it does by itself, or decisions that need judgment. Use it to draft and sort, and keep a person responsible for what goes out.
What it is good for
Where AI earns its keep, and where it does not.
The pattern: AI is a fast, well-read assistant that sometimes makes things up. Give it work a person will review.
Good uses today
- First drafts of emails, quotes and job descriptions
- Summarizing a long contract, thread or meeting
- Reading invoices and forms into fields
- Answering questions from your own documents, with sources
- Sorting and tagging incoming requests
- Explaining an error message or a spreadsheet formula
Poor uses today
- Legal, tax or medical conclusions without a professional
- Facts it cannot look up; it can state wrong things confidently
- Arithmetic and totals with no check
- Quoting prices or making promises to customers unsupervised
- Hiring and firing decisions
- Anything where nobody will read the result before it is used
Built in, not bolted on
Atlas and invoice reading, in the platform.
The Operation Buildup platform has two pieces of AI in it. Both work on your own data, inside your own account.
Atlas answers from your records
Ask a question in plain English and Atlas answers from what is in your platform: requests, customers, invoices, projects and the knowledge base.
It shows its sources
Every answer lists the records it came from, so you can open them and check. An answer you cannot check is an answer you should not act on.
It respects permissions
Atlas only uses what the person asking is allowed to see. Someone without access to invoices does not get invoice answers.
Your data is not training material
Your data is never used to train public AI.
Invoices read for you
Forward a vendor invoice by email. AI reads it, matches it to the vendor and routes it to the right person for approval. 100 invoices a month are included.
A person still approves
The AI reads and routes. A person approves the invoice. That is the right split for anything involving money.
A staff AI policy
One page your team can follow.
Your people are already using AI, with or without a policy. A short written one protects them and you. Adapt this to your office.
Never paste into a public chatbot
- Customer names with account, card or bank details
- Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, dates of birth
- Passwords, codes or anything from a password manager
- Employee records, pay and reviews
- Contracts or bids you promised to keep confidential
- Controlled or export-restricted information, for defense suppliers
Always check the answer
- Read every word before it goes to a customer
- Verify names, numbers, dates and quoted rules against the source
- Ask for sources, then open them
- Redo any math yourself
- If it matters and you cannot check it, do not use it
Who approves tools
- Name one person who approves any new AI tool
- Keep a short list of approved tools and what each is for
- Work accounts only, never personal ones
- Turn off training on your data where the tool allows it
- Review the list twice a year
Be straight with people
- Staff own what they send, whatever wrote the draft
- Do not present AI text as a person’s professional opinion
- Tell customers when they are talking to an AI
- Report mistakes quickly, without blame
Before you buy
Eight questions for any AI vendor.
These fit any AI product, including ours. A vendor who cannot answer them plainly is telling you something.
- Is our data used to train your models, or anyone else’s? Where is that in writing?
- Where is our data stored, and for how long after we delete it?
- Which other companies process our data on your behalf?
- Does the AI respect each user’s permissions, or can anyone ask about anything?
- Does it show the sources behind its answers?
- Who at your company can read what we type in?
- Can we export our data and leave? What happens to it then?
- What does it cost when our usage grows, and is there a cap?
What it costs
The platform price, published.
AI is part of the platform, not a separate charge. The CRM is sold separately, from $149 a month.
$145 a month at the minimum, or $25 per user billed annually.
- Atlas, the built-in AI assistant
- Invoices & approvals, 100 invoices a month included
- Help desk and knowledge base
- Onboarding & offboarding
- Projects
- Email signatures & directory
Managed IT clients get the platform included, except the CRM, which is sold separately. Minimum 5 users.
Questions
AI questions, plainly answered.
Is it safe to use ChatGPT at work?
It depends on what you paste in and which account you use. Public chatbots are fine for general drafting. Do not paste customer financial details, employee records, passwords or anything confidential, and use a work account with training on your data turned off where that is offered.
Will AI replace my office staff?
Not in an office this size. It takes over pieces of jobs, like typing invoice details or writing a first draft, and leaves the judgment, the customer and the responsibility with a person.
What is Atlas?
Atlas is the AI assistant built into the Operation Buildup platform. It answers questions in plain English from your own records, shows its sources and respects each person’s permissions.
Is our data used to train AI?
No. Data in the Operation Buildup platform is never used to train public AI.
How does AI invoice reading work?
You forward a vendor invoice by email. It is read, matched to the vendor and routed to the right person for approval. 100 invoices a month are included, and a person still approves each one.
What does it cost?
The platform is $29 per user, per month with a 5-user minimum, or $25 per user billed annually. It is included with Managed IT, except the CRM, which is sold separately.
Do we need an AI policy if we are small?
Yes, and it can be one page. The checklist above covers the three things that matter: what never goes into a public chatbot, checking answers, and who approves new tools.
Contact
Book a 20-minute demo.
The platform is in early access, so every new customer is set up through a short demo. Founding customers lock their price for 2 years.