It's easy to forget when you're immersed in the AI world that the vast majority of businesses aren't anywhere close to using it in any meaningful way. I recently asked a friend who works in marketing for a small business what AI tools they're using. His answer: none. The owner doesn't like AI so they don't use it. Another friend at a mid-sized company told me something similar. They use ChatGPT for basic things here and there, but that's about it.
The gap between what AI is capable of and what most businesses are actually doing with it is wide.
The reality is that even if you're not using AI in your business, your competitors probably are. They're building a competitive advantage that could put you on the back foot once it's fully in place.
If you've been wanting to do more with AI but aren't quite sure where to start, this article is for you. Here are 10 practical things you can do right now, no big budget, no technical team required.
Reddit and Online Communities: Free Market Research You're Probably Ignoring
People don't hold back on Reddit. It's where real, unfiltered conversations happen about products, services, industries, and frustrations. If you're not paying attention to it, you're leaving free market research on the table.
ChatGPT has a built-in Reddit scanning tool called AskReddit that pulls from real threads and summarizes what people are actually saying about any topic. You can do the same for your industry. Ask what people are complaining about, what they wish existed, what they think about a competitor, or what questions keep coming up. Swap in whatever is relevant to your business and you've got instant customer sentiment without a survey or focus group.
I tried it myself and asked "what are business owners saying are their biggest marketing challenges in 2026?" Here's what came back from actual Reddit threads:
- Standing out in a flood of generic AI generated content
- Proving ROI when budgets are tighter and sales cycles are longer
- Pay to play search making organic visibility harder for small businesses
- AI search visibility becoming the new SEO
Real answers pulled from real Reddit threads in seconds. More on how NotebookLM can take this even further when we get to that section.
↑ Back to topAI Competitor Intelligence: Know What Your Competition is Up To
Most businesses do competitor research the old fashioned way. A quick Google search, maybe a look at their website, and that's about it. AI lets you go a lot deeper without spending hours doing it.
Feed a competitor's website copy, recent blog posts, or LinkedIn content into Claude or ChatGPT and ask it to analyze their positioning and messaging. Ask things like "where does their messaging feel weak?" or "what are they not addressing that competitors in this space typically do?" You start to see gaps and opportunities that aren't obvious at first glance.
One thing I set up for our sales team was a custom GPT built specifically for prospect research. They enter a company name and it pulls a company summary with pertinent information, current news, competitor information and what those competitors are up to, and generates a prospect email template based on everything it found that can be sent as is or tweaked further. So before a sales call the rep isn't just armed with info about the prospect, they also know what the prospect's competitors are doing, which is often something the prospect hasn't even seen yet. That's a pretty good way to start a conversation.
NotebookLM: The Research Tool Most People Have Never Heard Of
This is one of my absolute favorite recent finds in the AI space!
NotebookLM is a free tool from Google that most people outside of the AI world have no idea exists. You feed it sources, up to 50 at a time, including documents, PDFs, URLs, YouTube videos, spreadsheets, complex data sets, and copied text, and it becomes an expert on everything you gave it in a matter of seconds. Ask questions, pull out key points, find patterns across multiple sources.
What it can produce from your content
- Summaries, briefings, FAQs and study guides
- Infographics, data tables and slide decks
- A podcast style audio conversation summarizing everything you fed it
- Video output for training or explainer content
I use the audio feature as a personal learning tool. I pull together articles, videos, and websites on a topic I want to dig into and listen to the generated audio on the treadmill or in the car. For a business that same approach works great for onboarding. Pull together everything you want a new team member to learn and you have engaging audio or video training content in minutes instead of a pile of documents nobody is going to read.
The 50 source capacity also makes it useful for bulk analysis. Feed it a large set of documents that need to be compared or evaluated against specific criteria, ask it to rank or rate them, and what would normally take hours gets done in minutes with consistent output every time.
↑ Back to topYour Google Business Profile is More Critical Than You Think
Most businesses set up their Google Business Profile once and forget about it. If that sounds familiar, it's worth revisiting because an active, well maintained profile carries real weight in local search rankings.
Here's how AI makes it easier to stay on top of it
Weekly status updates. Posting once a week signals to Google that your business is active and engaged. Use Claude, ChatGPT, or any AI tool to write a short optimized update. It takes five minutes. Google doesn't have native post scheduling built in, but tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Social Champ connect to your profile and can automate publishing so you set it and forget it. For those comfortable with more advanced AI tools, Claude Cowork can be configured to generate and publish posts on a schedule as part of a broader automated workflow.
Service descriptions. Google Business Profile lets you add individual descriptions for each service you offer. Most businesses either skip these or write something vague, which is a missed opportunity. A detailed, well written service description helps both Google and potential customers understand exactly what you do and why they should choose you. AI can write or sharpen these in minutes.
Getting reviews consistently. Google rewards ongoing activity, not just a burst of reviews from two years ago. Depending on your business, you should be generating new reviews weekly, monthly, or after every transaction. An AI powered workflow can automatically send a review invite email to customers after a purchase or interaction, making this completely hands off.
Mining your existing reviews. If you have a solid volume of reviews, paste them into Claude or ChatGPT and ask it to identify trends. What are people consistently praising? What keeps coming up as a complaint? Ask it to break it down by time period and you might find that something specific has shifted recently, for better or worse. That's real customer feedback that most businesses never actually analyze.
↑ Back to topStop Creating Content From Scratch Every Time
If you're writing a blog post and then separately figuring out what to post on LinkedIn, what to send in an email, and what to turn into a short video script, you're doing it the hard way. One solid piece of content can fuel everything else with very little additional effort.
Here's how it works
- Write one strong piece of content, a blog post, case study, or long form article
- Feed it into Claude or ChatGPT and ask for:
- A LinkedIn post
- A short form version for Instagram or Facebook
- An email newsletter summary
- A FAQ based on the content
- A short video script
That's five pieces of content from one.
Taking it further with NotebookLM
Drop in several pieces of your existing content and it can produce a podcast style audio discussion, a slide deck, an infographic, or a structured briefing. If you have a library of blog posts sitting there that nobody is reading anymore, that's a content goldmine waiting to be repurposed.
Not sure what to write about?
Loop back to the AskReddit GPT. Find out what challenges and questions people are actually discussing around your topic and you'll never write a blog post that misses the mark. If people are talking about it on Reddit, they want answers.
Where to start
Pick one piece of content you've already written and run it through Claude or ChatGPT with this prompt: "Turn this into a LinkedIn post, a short email, and three social media captions." Most people are surprised how good the output is right out of the gate.
Build a Custom GPT and Stop Repeating Yourself
Think of a Custom GPT as a template with specific instructions and knowledge documents. You build it once, and it's ready to use anytime by you or anyone on your team. No more typing the same instructions into ChatGPT over and over.
The part most people don't realize is that you can attach documents directly to it. Brand guidelines, service descriptions, proposal templates, product information, company FAQs, whatever is relevant, all live inside it so you're never starting from scratch.
Some practical examples of what you can build
- A writing assistant that already knows your brand voice and tone
- A proposal generator that has your template and fills in the relevant sections based on what you tell it
- A prospect research tool that pulls company info, current news, and competitor activity when you enter a name
- A job posting generator that already knows your culture, requirements, and preferred format
- A customer FAQ bot that knows everything about your products and services
- A document editor that takes your existing templates and fills them out based on your input
For the more technically inclined
Claude Code takes automation a step further, allowing you to build custom workflows and automate repetitive processes at a deeper level than most standard AI tools. Worth exploring if you're ready to go beyond the basics.
Where to start
Open ChatGPT, click Explore GPTs, then Create. Describe what you want it to do, upload any relevant documents, and give it a name. Simple ones can be set up within minutes. And before you build one from scratch, browse the GPT store first. There are thousands of pre-built GPTs and there's a good chance someone has already built something close to what you need.
Actually Understand Why Your Social Media Is or Isn't Working
Most businesses post on social media and have a general sense of what's performing, but very few dig into why. Standard analytics tools tell you what happened. AI helps you understand what it means and what to do about it.
The simplest version costs nothing
- Export your social media data from LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or wherever you're active
- Drop it into Claude or ChatGPT and ask:
- Which posts got the most engagement and what do they have in common?
- What topics or formats are consistently underperforming?
- What's the best day and time to post based on your actual data?
You get specific answers based on your own numbers, not generic best practice advice that may not apply to your audience.
Take it further
Feed in competitor content alongside your own and ask AI to identify patterns in what's working for them that you're not doing. Not to copy them, but to spot gaps and opportunities in your own strategy.
Where to start
Pull a data export from whichever platform you're most active on and drop it into Claude with the prompt: "Analyze this data and tell me what's working, what isn't, and what I should do differently."
Show Up Where People Are Actually Searching Now
Most businesses are still focused entirely on Google rankings. That's not wrong, but it's incomplete. A growing number of people are skipping Google altogether and going straight to ChatGPT, Perplexity, or other AI tools to find answers, recommendations, and service providers. If your business isn't showing up there, you're invisible to that audience.
Getting recommended by AI search tools is called AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). It sounds technical but the core idea is straightforward. AI tools recommend businesses they can understand, trust, and verify. Your job is to make sure your website gives them everything they need to do that.
What that looks like in practice
- FAQs. Add a detailed FAQ section to your website that answers the specific questions your customers ask. AI tools love pulling from FAQ content when forming answers.
- Schema markup. This is code added to your website that helps AI and search engines understand what your business is, what you offer, and who you serve. Claude can generate the schema code for you.
- Page structure. Make sure your pages use proper H1 and H2 headings, descriptive image alt text, and clean overall structure.
- SEO settings. Most website platforms like WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix have SEO settings built in. Make sure your page titles, meta descriptions, and URLs are filled out and optimized. AI can help you write all of these.
- Clear, structured content. AI tools favor websites that are well organized, clearly written, and specific about what the business does. Vague or generic copy works against you.
- Consistent information everywhere. Your business name, address, phone number, and services should be consistent across your website, Google Business Profile, social media, and any directories you're listed in.
One often overlooked step
After updating a service or product page, post a Google Business Profile status update about it and then go into Google Search Console and manually request a re-crawl of that page. This speeds up how quickly the update gets picked up in search results.
Where to start
Ask Claude or ChatGPT "what would make my website more likely to be recommended by AI search tools?" You'll get a specific and actionable list. This is also an area where working with an AI consultant or marketing professional can pay off quickly. For a deeper dive, check out: 7 Things to Get Your 2026 Website AI Ready
Missed Meeting Notes = Missed Opportunities
If your team is still taking manual notes during sales calls or meetings and then trying to remember what was discussed afterward, there's a better way. AI powered meeting and call recording tools like Read AI record, transcribe, and summarize everything automatically so nothing falls through the cracks.
Why this is more valuable than it sounds
- Sales reps get accurate call notes without typing anything during the conversation, which means they can actually focus on the call
- Summaries can be sent to all participants immediately after so everyone is aligned on next steps
- Because AI captures everything, nothing gets filtered out. If a customer casually mentions interest in a service you don't currently offer, it's in the notes. Add that service later and you can search every recorded conversation for customers who mentioned it. Run a quarterly analysis across all your call notes and you'll start seeing patterns, missed opportunities, and customer satisfaction trends that would never surface from manual notes.
- If someone missed a meeting, they get the summary and can drop it into Claude or ChatGPT and ask questions to get fully caught up without bothering anyone
Taking it further as a project workspace
As a project moves forward, start dropping your call summaries, meeting notes, project documents, and relevant spreadsheets into a single AI conversation in Claude or ChatGPT. Now you have a queryable project history. Ask things like "what did we decide about pricing two weeks ago?" or "has the client mentioned their go live date in any of our conversations?" Instead of digging through emails and notes you get an answer instantly.
Where to start
Read AI connects directly to your calendar and joins your calls automatically. It has a free tier to get started. Let it join your next call and see what it produces. Most people are hooked after the first meeting.
Be Curious. The Best AI Discovery Is the One Relevant to You.
Every tip in this article is just a starting point. AI is moving fast and there are more use cases than anyone could cover in a single blog post. The ones that will matter most to you are the ones that solve your specific problems, and those are going to be different for everyone.
You might be surprised. A lot of people have discovered that things they assumed required hiring someone or buying expensive software can be handled with a well configured AI tool or a simple automated workflow.
Some examples of questions worth asking an AI tool
- "I want a chatbot on my website that answers basic questions when I'm not available, how do I set that up?"
- "I spend two hours every Monday pulling data from three different places to build a report, can this be automated?"
- "I want to automatically follow up with anyone who fills out my contact form, what's the simplest way to do that?"
- "I want to monitor when people mention my company online, how would I set something like that up?"
Your action item
What's one thing right now that takes up a lot of your time or slows you down in your work? Open Claude, ChatGPT, or whichever AI tool you prefer and just describe it. You don't need to know the solution going in. Explain it the same way you'd explain it to a colleague and ask what's possible. The answer might be simpler than you think.
