How to create an AI strategy for a small business, without the jargon

Start with business goals

Write down two or three things the business wants to improve over the next year. They should be business goals, not technology goals. "Respond to every enquiry the same day" is a goal. "Use AI" is not.

Good goals give you a way to judge every idea that follows. If a project does not help with a goal, it can wait.

• Win more work from the enquiries we already get
• Spend less time on admin and more on paid work
• Give customers faster, more consistent answers
• Reduce mistakes from retyping information

List the opportunities

Ask everyone in the business where time goes and what frustrates them. Look at your busiest processes from start to finish: winning work, delivering it, invoicing and following up.

Write each opportunity as a short sentence. Our guides on what AI and automation can do and AI for small business have examples if you need ideas.

Score and prioritise

Give each opportunity a simple score out of five for three things: how much it would help your goals, how easy it would be to do and how low the risk is. Add the scores up. The highest totals are your first candidates.

Be honest about risk. Anything involving personal information, money or decisions about people deserves extra care, even if it scores well on value.

• Value: how much would this help one of our goals?
• Ease: could we do it with tools we have, or with a small project?
• Risk: what is the worst that could happen if it went wrong?

Set your ground rules

A short AI policy tells staff what is allowed. It should cover which tools are approved, what information must never be entered into them, when a person must check the output and who to ask when unsure.

You do not have to write it from scratch. The National AI Centre's Guidance for AI adoption (opens in a new tab) sets out six essential practices, starting with deciding who is accountable, and business.gov.au notes (opens in a new tab) that it comes with templates, including an AI policy template and an AI register template. For privacy rules, see AI and privacy for Australian businesses.

• Name a person accountable for AI use in the business.
• List approved tools and what each may be used for.
• Keep personal and confidential information out of public AI tools.
• Require a person to check anything sent to customers or affecting money.

Plan your first 90 days

Pick one or two projects from the top of your list. For each, write what success looks like, who owns it, the budget and a review date. Keep the first projects small enough to finish within a few weeks.

At the review date, decide whether to keep, change or stop each project, then choose the next one. A strategy that is reviewed and updated is far more useful than a perfect one that sits in a drawer.

When to get outside help

Some businesses find it useful to have an experienced person run a short workshop or review their list. An outsider often spots opportunities and risks that are easy to miss from the inside.

You can browse specialists who offer AI strategy and advisory work and book a free 15-minute consultation, or tell us about your business and we will look for someone suitable. Our guide on choosing an AI consultant explains what to look for.