Kaye Nicholson's Latest Bdaily Column Asks: Is Your Business Using AI Right?
Kaye Nicholson's latest Bdaily column looks at why businesses should question the process before automating it, and why making unnecessary work faster is not the same as becoming more efficient.
My latest column for Bdaily is now live, and this one gets to the heart of something I talk about with businesses all the time.
Artificial intelligence can make work faster.
But that does not automatically mean the work should exist in the first place.
The column, “Is your business using artificial intelligence right?”, looks at the growing pressure on businesses to automate, streamline and introduce AI into everyday work.
There is a lot AI can genuinely help with.
Routine reports.
Information handling.
Documents.
Common enquiries.
Repeated administration.
Processes that involve people copying the same information between systems.
But before asking whether AI can automate something, there is another question worth asking first:
Why are we doing this task at all?
Automation is not the same as efficiency
A poor process does not become a good process simply because technology makes it faster.
If a report is no longer useful, automating it does not solve the real problem.
If information is being entered three times because systems do not work together, automatically entering it three times may still be the wrong answer.
And if a meeting exists purely because it has always existed, an AI-generated meeting summary is probably not the breakthrough the business needs.
That is why GrowthZone AI starts with the work.
Where is time disappearing?
Why does the process exist?
Who actually needs the outcome?
Could a step be removed altogether?
Then, once we understand the work, we can decide whether AI or automation belongs in the answer.
Where can AI genuinely reduce administration?
AI can be extremely useful where work is:
- repetitive
- predictable
- information-heavy
- time-consuming
- understood well enough to explain
- easy for a person to check
That might include:
- preparing first drafts
- organising information
- summarising meetings
- creating reports
- processing documents
- preparing proposals
- moving approved information between systems
- supporting routine customer communication
The important part is understanding the workflow before introducing the technology.
Start with the process, not another subscription
Small businesses do not need to collect AI tools.
They need to understand where time is being lost and what outcome they actually need.
Sometimes the answer will be AI.
Sometimes it will be automation.
Sometimes it will be better training.
Sometimes the process simply needs simplifying.
And occasionally the best efficiency improvement is to stop doing the task altogether.
That is a much more useful AI conversation.
Read Kaye's Bdaily columns
Latest: Is your business using artificial intelligence right?
Written by
Kaye Nicholson
Founder, GrowthZone AI · Bdaily Columnist
Kaye Nicholson is the founder of GrowthZone AI and a columnist for Bdaily, helping businesses, charities, founders and teams use AI in simple, practical ways without jargon or overwhelm.
Book a short AI chatFound this helpful? Share it:
Reader feedback
Got a view on this week's AI Reality Check? Join the conversation on LinkedIn or send your thoughts directly.
Get the AI Reality Check weekly newsletter
Weekly practical AI updates for UK businesses: what changed, what it means, and what to watch next.
Talk to us about AI
Want to find out where AI genuinely fits in your processes? Get in touch.
Get in touch