Blog
AI at work, in plain language.
What holds up when AI does real work in a business, what it costs and where it goes wrong. A new post every Friday.
- Before you post that admin job, check what AI can already coverA typical office administrator posting, broken down duty by duty into what AI handles today and what still needs a person.
- Hiring an AI consultant in Calgary: eight questions to ask firstHow to tell a consultant who ships working AI from one who sells slides, with the questions that separate them.
- Why we read every invoice three timesHow an accounts payable system uses three independent AI reads and a strict agreement rule to process invoices without trusting any single answer.
- What an AI phone receptionist does with a missed call, and what it never shouldA look inside a working AI voice agent, from the moment a call is missed to the summary the owner reads afterward, with the guardrails built in.
- AI for Calgary property managers: six back-office jobs it handles todayWhere AI saves real hours in property management, from invoice intake to owner reports, and the decisions that should stay with your team.
- AI for trades and field service: dispatch, quotes and the follow-up nobody has time forPractical places AI saves hours in plumbing, HVAC, electrical and contracting businesses, and the parts that should stay with your team.
- Which AI model should do which job? What testing on real tasks showedI ran three tiers of AI model through the same twelve real work tasks. Here's what passed, what it cost, and how I route work now.
- What AI work actually costs a small companyWhere the money goes when AI does real business tasks, why the model bill is usually the smallest part, and how to estimate it before you start.
- A rental shop run by three people: what we automated at Rundle BikeHow a bike rental shop in Canmore handles peak season with a small team, which jobs software took over, and which ones stayed human on purpose.
- How to write an SOP that AI and your staff can both followA simple template for standard operating procedures that work for a new employee and for an AI agent, with a worked example.
- Is it safe to put client data into AI tools? A plain answer for Alberta businessesWhat happens to business data in consumer versus business AI plans, what Alberta's privacy law expects, and what should never leave your systems.
- The Taco Bell lesson: where AI customer service breaksA drive-thru order for 18,000 water cups shows what goes wrong when AI talks to customers, and the guardrails that prevent it.
- 95% of company AI pilots show no return. What the other 5% doAn MIT study found most generative AI pilots never pay off. Here's the pattern I see in the projects that do.
- What AI still can't do in a small businessThe honest list of jobs AI handles badly, and why knowing the limits is what makes the rest of it safe to use.
- ChatGPT is a brand new hire every time you open itWhy generic AI chat keeps giving you generic answers, and how a few written pages about your business change what it can do.
Have work that needs doing?
Send me the role, the problem, the process or the team you want trained. I'll come back with what I'd deliver, how I'd run it and a fixed fee.