GuidesHow to2 min
How to pick the first AI job
Circle work that is frequent, textual, and cheap to get wrong. Publish the truth first. Then a clerk — not a strategy.
The cheap part is the model. The expensive part is being wrong. Pick a job where a miss is an edit, not an incident. Frequent, textual, cheap if wrong: drafts, tags, extraction. Cross out money, medicine, law, unsupervised sends.
SINLE Innovation Agency will not bolt a chatbot onto a dead FAQ and call it AI. We treat the model as a clerk on a stuck job you already do, with a human lock on money and sends. If you cannot say what got faster after two weeks, you bought a demo. We will decline “AI transformation” as a brief.
The sequence below is how you pick the first job. Publish the truth on a page you own first. Then the clerk.
The first job, narrowed
From last month’s repetitive work, keep only what is frequent, textual, and cheap if wrong: a draft reply, a tag, an extraction from a PDF you already receive. Cross out money, medicine, law, and anything you cannot undo by Friday. Publish the source of truth on a page you own before you add a clerk.
Then draft with a model and send as a person. Count hours for two weeks. If you cannot say what got faster, stop. A chatbot on an empty FAQ is a slower phone.
The sequence
Do these in order. Skip a line and you are back to a workshop.
- 01
List last month’s repetitive work
One page. Every message, ticket, or form you handled more than three times.
- 02
Circle only what is frequent, textual, and cheap if wrong
Drafts, tags, search, extraction. Cross out money, medicine, law, passwords.
- 03
Write the source of truth in your own words
FAQ, policy, hours, catalogue. A model with no source invents the company.
- 04
Put that text on a page people can find
Your site — not a Google Doc. Booking or checkout lives there too if that is the leak.
- 05
Draft with a model, send as a human
Measure hours for two weeks. If you cannot measure it, you bought a demo.
- 06
Skip the chatbot until the page is doing the job
If DMs did not drop, the FAQ is incomplete. Fix the site first.
Keep these
- AI is a clerk, not a strategy.
- If you cannot say what got faster after two weeks, stop.
Do this before you spend
- 01List work you did more than three times last month.
- 02Circle one item a miss would only cost an edit.
- 03Put the source of truth on a page. Do not buy a chatbot yet.
Send that one circled job. We will say clerk, page first, or wrong tool — in writing.
Questions
- How should a small business use AI?
- Treat it as a clerk. Draft, tag, extract, summarise — with a human on money and sends. Start with one stuck job, not a model.
Next how-to
- How to tell AI is the wrong toolA filter you can run in a meeting: undo-by-Friday, named job, owned source of truth. Fail any line and you are buying an incident.
- How to ship an agent with a human lockThe lock is the product. The model is the clerk. Auth, keys, evals, a kill switch, and a person before money or a send.
- How to replace a spreadsheet with software you ownMap the real columns, agree who confirms a row, propose-then-confirm, then the sheet becomes an export — not the company.
Next
Name the first clerk. Not a strategy.
Spark is $750. We write where a model helps, where it does not, and what to publish first. You keep the note.